Lyoko Diaries
by YoungAndRestless
Summary: Odd and his twin sister Jade battle alongside the other Lyoko Warriors to prevent an evil computer program from enslaving all of humanity. Following selected episodes, the OC and her sibling fight to find peace in a secret war that only them and their closest friends know is even being waged.
1. Teddygozilla

**When twins Odd and Jade Della Robbia arrived at Kadic Academy, they thought it would be just another boring daily routine of homework and irritating teachers. But when they are recruited by the school's genius to battle a virtual virus threatening to enslave humanity, they find that this school is anything but. Following my favorite Code Lyoko episodes, with the addition of Jade, an OC, we watch as the young junior high students battle a threat greater than any one of them.**

 **Jade, the OC, has blonde, short hair, with bangs that cover the right side of her face, and are dipped with green and purple tips. She wears skinny jeans, with one leg green and the other purple, and black combat boots. A black jacket cover a green tank top completes her look. She is reserved and shy, quieter than her brother, but shares his sense of humor. A hidden crush on Ulrich puts her at odds against Yumi, she feels more comfortable around the males of their group than the females, and her spunky style but meek personality makes her an easy target for Sissy.**

 **A knowledge of the T.V series will be needed to truly appreciate this fanfic, as I will be choosing my favorite episodes, and rewriting them. If you need a more decent chronology than the one I will provide at the beginning of each chapter, look on Wikipedia for the episode synopsis to catch up.**

 **This fanfic was requested by** RAIKIM4everlover, **a fan of my original Lyoko story,** **Leaving Lyoko Behind.** **If you enjoy this story, feel free to check the inspiration out!**

"Yumi, watch it, your letting that ribbon hang too low," Jade called from the bottom of the ladder, waving her hand at her friend. "Pin it higher, or it will be uneven." As Yumi tugged and readjusted the placement of the decoration, Ulrich and Odd held the ladder of which she was atop, holding it steady. As Jade nodded her approval, a meek voice from outside the school auditorium could be heard.

"Hello, fellow students of Kadic Junior High!" Odd glanced over at Milly, who stood just outside the doors, reporting with Tamiya for the Kadic news. As Odd turned his attention back to holding the ladder steady, all four of them could hear Milly request an quick interview with Sissy, the principal's daughter, and most likely girl to be crowned, once again, for beauty queen.

"Sorry, munchkins, I only speak to r _eal_ reporters." Herb, one of two Sissy's constant shadows who were madly in love with her, placed his hand over Tamiya's camera lense, cutting off the recording of the news.

"But it's for the school news program! What about freedom of the press?" Milly said, her brow furrowed with surprise.

"Oh Milly, little dipsticks like you don't have any freedom, understand?" Sissy whipped around, her hands on her curvy hips, a cruel smile on her lips. As Nicolas and Herb returned from forcing Tamiya to cut the filming, Sissy continued. "Besides, you have a problem," she crooned, her eyes narrowing with pleasure, "don't forget you need a date, and I don't know anyone who would want to go with a dork like you." Sissy pointed at the awkward Nicolas and the pimple tormented Herb, saying, "Even them; I bet if you asked them, they would run like scared rabbits!" As Milly glanced at them meekly, the two boys choked with disgust and ran to Sissy's side, hiding from her gaze behind Sissy. Hurt, Milly bit the inside of her cheek and turned angrily to Sissy.

"Who needs them? There are lots of other boys!" Milly shouted defensively. Sissy took a step closer, reveling in the hurt she was causing the younger girl.

"Oh yeah?" she teased, drawing out the words. "What are you waiting for then? Try and find one!" As her demeaning laugh filled Milly's ears, Milly felt her heart racing in humility. She looked about frantically, searching for a boy to ask, desperate to prove the queen bee wrong.

"Ulrich?" she called weakly to the boy in the gym. Ulrich turned his attention to her, his eyes filled with curiosity. "Will- "her voice cracked with panic as a uninvited tear escaped down her cheek. "Will you be my date tonight?"

Odd snorted loudly and tried unsuccessfully to hide a cruel laugh behind his hand. Just as Jade glared at him and opened her mouth to chastise him, Ulrich began to stutter his response. "I'm sorry Milly, it wouldn't be a very good idea, I am too old for you. And I already promised to go with Yumi." Yumi and Ulrich glanced shyly away from each other, and Milly felt her already bruised self esteem crack further. Jade looked away, a ping of jealousy striking her heart strings.

A cold, victorious laugh filled the echoic auditorium. "You see? What did I tell you? But don't worry Milly, I'm sure you can find a date for the sand box dance! Meanwhile, why don't you go play with your dolls?"As Sissy sneered her final blows, Milly felt her heart constrict. Dashing blindly out the front doors, her sobs trailed behind her as she fled the dagger-like words. Tamiya ran after her, calling for her to wait up, as Sissy flipped her hair concededly.

"I hope you're happy," Yumi said, crossing her arms on her chest. As Sissy glared at each of them in turn, Jade felt slightly guilty at the pleasure that, for once, she wasn't Sissy's target. _She's a piece of work_ , Jade thought bitterly.

Sissy stalked away bitterly, flanked by her two henchman, her hips swaying with her stride, to return to her work of hanging the disco ball. Quietly, the four friends began to continue their work on the dance's set up. Ulrich's brow was tense as he tapped down the speaker wires to the floor, tearing the duct tape with his teeth.

"Don't look so gloomy, Ulrich, is it because of Milly? You could've said yes, you know me, and prom…" Yumi drawled, her eyes gazing around at their handy work.

"Even if I was your date?" Odd said into the microphone, wagging his eyes at Yumi suggestively. As Yumi smiled and rolled her eyes, Jade, who had climbed the scaffolding to rig some lights, looked down to her brother.

"Believe me, Odd, if you were Yumi's date, she'd move to America to avoid dancing with you," she called down. Odd stuck out his tongue, and Yumi laughed quietly. As Jade hopped down next to her brother, Ulrich looked up at Sissy on the ladder.

"Sissy really did come on strong. If meaness is one of the qualities of a beauty queen, she will be re-elected for sure," Ulrich sighed, glaring at the brunette high above. Jeremy struggled into the auditorium with a heavy box filled with wires, and caught the end of the conversation.

"That's true," Jeremy called, getting Sissy's attention. "But try to get _Ms. World_ to see that."

"Ms. World, huh?" Odd chuckled into the microphone, his voice amplified greatly. "Ms. In-Her-Own-World is more like it!" As the others laughed and Jade gave her brother an approving high five, Sissy gritted her teeth in anger. Storming out of the auditorium, she left for her room. As her goons scrambled to follow her, the Lyoko Warriors rushed to pick up the slack, and finished quickly.

As they exited the auditorium, they saw a crowd of students was blocking to main doors into the dormitories. Delmas, the principal, guided his daughter carefully through the masses, telling them to return to their prior activities. Sissy cried quietly against her father, burying her face into her father's side and smearing the facial mask she had applied all over his suit. As the crowd thinned and Sissy and her father walked further away, Odd looked at the others, suspicion in his eyes.

"What do you say we take a look to make sure our old friend X.A.N.A isn't behind this?" Yumi nodded her head at Odd, and the five charged up the stairs to the girl's floor. Peeking into Sissy's room, Jeremy analyzed the chaos within.

"A simple short circuit," Jeremy concluded, pushing his glasses higher up his nose. "Too many appliances plugged in at once."

"Yeah, the high, fine lights, lady shaver, and curling iron…what do you expect to happen?" Yumi sighed, turning away from the scene, content to know that the accident was natural.

"Not to mention the brain stimulator, although she probably never figured out how to use it," Jeremy smiled, walking away with his friends, his mind at ease. As the five walked out of the doors, Odd waved to his friends.

"I'm headed to the cafeteria, my stomach just told me it's about to die!" Odd began walking away, and Jeremy shook his head.

"Odd, do you ever think of anything except food?

"All this awesome needs something to fuel it!" the blonde called back, waving goodbye. Jade, who was still shy around her new friends, jogged to keep up with her twin brother, waving her own sheepish goodbye to the trio remaining. As the siblings walked along, Jade heard sobbing to her right, and turned to find Milly sobbing into the sleeves of her sweater on the ground, and Tamiya trying to comfort her. Jade tugged on her brother's purple shoulder, nodded her head to the girls, and the two of them walked over.

"Something wrong, Milly?" Odd asked, feeling pity for the younger girl; today just wasn't Milly's day.

"Somebody stole her teddy bear," Tamiya whined, flicking through several of their developed photos, trying to find a good one that would cheer Milly up. "Take a look at this o-"

"And I'm sure it was one of the big kids who did it for spite," Milly spat, cutting off her best friend's attempt at brightening her day. Tamiya frowned, insulted by Milly's interruption, and flicked through several more photos slowly.

"Don't worry, Milly," Jade said awkwardly, trying to mimic her brother's caring tone. She looked over a Tamiya, whose gazed was focused severely on one of the prints. "What are you looking at, Tamiya?"

"Guys, Milly was right! Look at this!" Everyone crowded around Tamiya, shielding the picture with their hands from the sun to reduce the glare as they focused where Tamiya's finger was pointing. "It's a picture of Sissy's room."

"And there's my teddy bear!" Milly gasped, staring at the photo." It's there, hidden under her pillow."

"Who would've believed it?" Odd scoffed, straightening and rolling his eyes at his sister. "Soon she will be playing with dolls!"

"Alright," Milly said, balling her fists. "We've gotta' go find her!"

"Wait!" Tamiya said, grabbing a hold of Milly's pink sleeve. "If Jim finds us in Sissy's room, we'll be in big trouble, Milly."

"You two go back to your room," Odd commanded, slipping the photo of Sissy's room from Tamiya's small hands. Throwing his arm around his sister's shoulders and holding up the picture confidently, he smiled. "We'll handle this." As the twins strode away, Jade turned and gave the kids a thumbs up, offering them a small smile.

The two mischief makers climbed the stairs two at a time, and snuck quietly into Sissy's room closing the door behind them. They looked under all of her pillows, below the bed, in every possible nook and cranny, but nowhere was there a stuffed mammal.

"Where could it be?" Jade growled, glaring around at the disgustingly pink room. Odd scratched his head in confusion, looking from the picture, to the room around him, and back again. His phone beeped loudly, and Odd whipped it out quickly.

"Come on, Jeremy says he needs us back in the auditorium; Mr. Delmas said that the wires for the dance weren't tapped down well enough," Odd said. Jade scoffed, turning to her brother.

"You're joking! The way Ulrich tapped down the wires wasn't good enough, but the crooked way Sissy hung the disco ball was fine?" Odd shrugged, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

"It's his daughter, everything the little princess does is perfect," he said opening the door and leaving the room, his sister close behind.

"Yeah, even the way she bullies other's is without flaw," Jade hissed, her bangs hiding the majority of her face. Odd glanced at his sister, worried.

"Jade, just tell someone she's bothering you, I'm sure that someone will talk to her." Jade chuckled darkly, her fist balling angrily.

"I think the school's diva could use a good Laser Arrow to the face, not a stern talking too." As the two entered the auditorium, they saw that Jeremy, Ulrich, and Yumi were already hard at work. The siblings jumped in quickly, helping the others. After a few moments, Jeremy looked at the others, and pulled his headphones off of his ears.

"What happened to Sissy, it was kinda weird, don't you think?" Jeremy inquired.

"It was a short circuit, a simple short circuit, what else could it be?" Ulrich yawned, tapping more wires.

"I'm not so sure, and you know exactly what I mean," Jeremy said sternly, looking meaningfully at Ulrich.

"Anyways," Yumi interrupted, cutting off the boys, "let's play it real cool; walls have ears." She looked critically at Herb and Nicolas, who stalked by with some boxes filled with party lights. "Ya' know what I mean?" The boys nodded their understanding, and Yumi rose quickly, stretching tall.

"Well, I've gotta go now and get ready for the prom tonight," she drawled, smiling at Ulrich. "Sometimes being a day student can be a total drag."

"Don't complain," Ulirch groaned. "No one wakes you up at six a.m., you have hot water, and you don't have to sleep next to smelly Odd." Odd shouted in protest, and Jade giggled in agreement. Yumi waved at the others, and headed for the door.

"See you later!" Yumi called back to her friends.

"See you tonight," Jade called in return. Jade turned to ask her brother if he had found a date yet, but couldn't find him anywhere. "Hey, guys, where is Odd at?" Jeremy and Ulrich looked around, and found that they didn't know where he was either. The three finished up quickly, and began heading for the doors.

"Wow, look at that," Ulrich smiled, pointing at the sky. The setting sun had donned the sky with vibrant hues of orange, red and pink. Jade snuck a peek from under her bangs at Ulrich's profile, and felt her cheeks warm as she thought of how handsome he was.

Behind them, a door banged shut far away. As the three turned, they saw Odd running towards them, a crumpled paper in his hand. Odd quickly explained about Milly's missing stuffed animal, and how Jim had been attacked over by the gymnasium. "Look, he even drew a sketch for Delmas as to who his attacker was." Odd shoved the drawing into Ulrich's grasp.

"X.A.N.A? In a teddy bear?" Ulrich said inquisitively, disbelief coloring his words.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure," Odd nodded, leaning on his roommates shoulder to look at the childish picture in his hands.

"He's always there when you least expect him," Jeremy mused, his hand placed thoughtfully on his chin.

"Okay, guys, who goes and who stays here?" Odd asked with excitement, bouncing on the balls of his heels.

"We can't have a solo mission, it's too dangerous without Yumi. If you go alone, you never know what you're going to find over there," Jeremy said, shaking his head.

"You three go, I'll stay," Ulrich said, tossing the paper at Odd, who caught it expertly. Jade felt a ping of jealousy in her heart as she heard Ulrich choose protecting Yumi over the adventure and excitement of Lyoko. Swallowing her hurt, she nodded in agreement. "Go on, say hello to you-know-who for me," Ulrich said teasingly, winking at Jeremy. Jeremy began blushing madly, but nodded he'd pass the message on to Aelita. Ulrich began running towards the campus gates, and Jeremy, Jade, and Odd tore into the forest and slipped stealthily into the sewers. After skating through the waterways to the factory's bridge, they climbed up rapidly and entered the abandoned warehouse. Sliding down the ropes at desperate speeds and dashing into the elevator, they were all afraid that they wouldn't be able to deactivate the tower in time.

Jade and her brother dashed into the scanners. "Jeremy, we are ready!" Jade shouted, looking at the microphones and speakers Jeremy had rigged in the corners of the room.

"Alright, I just spoke with Ulrich on the phone," Jeremy's voice crackled above them, breaking with feedback. "Odd was right, X.A.N.A has a fondness for stuffed forest animals. We have to deactivate the tower, before the two story stuffed bear hurts anymore people!"

"Roger!" Odd said, winking at his sister across the room. The scanner doors shut smoothly in front of them, and Jade's clotes began to billow around her as the light intensified in the cylinder. She shut her eyes against the blinding rays, and tried to calm her heart, which was pounding with excitement.

"Transfer Odd, Transfer Jade. Scanner Odd, Scanner Jade. Virtualization!" The brightness became painfully bright, and Jade squinted against it in pain. Her hair whipped her cheeks, and a blast of air spew from below her. She felt a brief sense of nausea, and her head grew light and dizzy as her particles zoomed through the network and reestablished connections on Lyoko. With a sharp inhale, Jade materialized on Lyoko, and fell to her feet stealthily beside her virtual, pink friend.

Jade's costume was much like that of her brother's; cat ears, a tail, enormous gloves that made her hands look like paws. Combat boots and a black mini skirt fringed with green lace covered the lower half of her body. On her black tank top, an neon green X.A.N.A logo with a purple X crossing it out displayed her allegiance to the Lyoko Warriors. Her gloves were also trimmed with lace, and didn't have the Kiwi resemblance that her brother's did.

"How are things on Earth?" Aelita asked, smiling at her guardians.

"You know,same as usual; homework, tests, giant bears destroying the city…" Jade said dryly, appraising the Desert Sector around her. Aelita's eyes widened, and she looked to the digital sky above her.

"If it's under X.A.N.A's control," she gasped, addressing Jeremy, "it'll only become much madder! It will go for anybody that's around, especially his mortal enemies… like you."

"What?" Screeched Jeremy from above. Jade and Odd looked at each other, their eyebrows furrowed in fear. The twins didn't know what they would do without their best friends. After a moment of silence, Aelita shook her head and began to speak, redirecting the attention to the mission at hand.

"You see that?" She stated quietly, gesturing to a large crater in the Desert Sector in front of them. "The tower that X.A.N.A has activated can't be too far away." Odd peered down, and saw the fog of the Digital Sea at the far off bottom of the crater's pit. With a small shiver of fear, he crouched low and placed his hands on the sand beneath him.

"Well, it's not down there anyway," he grunted eyeing the fall.

Aelita scratched her head, her eyes searching the horizon surrounding her. "Maybe on the neighboring plateaus," she mused. Jade's ears pricked as she heard mechanical footsteps approaching, and she whipped around with a feral hiss, crouching down.

"Too late," Odd groaned. "Here comes the welcoming committee!" Five Kankrelats surrounded the trio, blocking them in against the intimidating drop behind them.

"Guys," Jeremy's voice wavered from above, "take care of Aelita for me."

"Like we'd ever let these bugs touch her," Jade growled as her ears flattened and her clawed paw shot forward in a threat, her teeth bared. As a dull whirring filled their ears,and the laser shooter on the monster's front began to glow, the two warriors tensed, ready for battle. As the first laser was shot at Aelita, Jade dove and knocked them both to safety, as Odd began his deadly acrobatic dance. Cartwheeling out of the way, and pointing his glove upside down in mid air, Odd shot his first attack.

"Laser Arrow!" he cried as his hand felt the kickback of the arrow leaving his glove.

"Guys, what's going on out there?" Jeremy panicked from above. Odd's first arrow slammed into the Eye of one of the Kankrelats, and it exploded on impact.

"Go!" Jade said, shoving her charge down the narrow cliff that wound its way down the crater. "Take cover!" As Odd glanced back to make sure both the girl's were safe, a red beam of light slammed into his chest, knocking him flat on his back.

"Odd! You've just lost another ten life points, what are you doing!" Jeremy shouted, his voice wavering with static.

"Oh, you know, having a picnic, Belpois," Jade chimed in sarcastically, firing her aggressive rebuttal with one hand and pulling her brother to her feet with the other.

"Yeah, but diplomacy doesn't really seem to be working with the indigenous," Odd added, firing a few more shots alongside his twin. Together, the two dashed to follow Aelita down the steep path, the ground shielding them from the laser's that were shot at their retreating backs. Dust and pebbles fell down on their heads as the monster's above continued their onslaught, the cliff edge barely providing them enough cover.

"Guys, I'm afraid we have no choice," Aelita huffed, pointing for the three of them to flee down the twisting path. Odd turned to his digital friend, and his whole body became rigid as he gasped, his eyes widening. Before him, he saw Aelita falling through thin air, clawing for something to save her, as she plummeted screaming into the Digital Sea below.

"Odd?" Jade shouted over the sound of fire, shaking her brother's shoulder. Odd shook his head, grabbed his sister's paw, and lead her down the path quickly, Aelita scampering before them. As they fled, they could hear the grinding of the Kankrelat's legs behind them as they scittered quickly in pursuit. Jade turned and dropped to one knee, holding her paw out in front of her, her left eye squinted closed.

"Laser Arrow," she cried, sending a rapid volley of attacks forward. Two of the four monsters exploded at impact, and the other two leapt to the side just in time. Both launched two lasers in retaliation, and Jade landed on her back with a pained groan.

"Jade! That's thirty life points!" Jeremy cried from above. Odd turned around and shot two arrows himself, coming to Jade's aid. One of the darts hit home, and the tiny shockwave of the monster's explosion sent its teammate tumbling down the cliff side.

Aelita, who had continued running down the spiral, was slammed in the side by the falling body, and with a scream of terror, began falling down, down, down, just as Odd had seen.

Recklessly, he lauched himself into the air after her, digging his claws into the rock face to throw himself faster after her. Finally, gripping her hand, he whirled and dug his free hand into the vertical rock, and gritting his teeth, began slowing their dangerous descend. After a few painful moments, Odd opened his eyes, and found that they had finally stopped.

"Wow," he gasped, shaking his head. "We can't leave you alone for one second, huh?" Jade, who was scaling her way down the cliff side much more cautiously, finally climbed down beside her brother. Aelita didn't hear his teasing as she tilted her head to the side.

"Guys," she stuttered, still hanging from Odd's paw, "I think I found something!" Serendipitously, Odd was holding her in front of the mouth of a tunnel, which was carved right into the face of the crater's side, hiding it from above. Inside, Aelita could make out tower veins, which were throbbing rapidly. Giving her a swing, Odd threw her into the tunnel's entrance, and the two feline garrison members crawled in after her.

"Guys, hurry up, Teddy's getting angry! He's laying waste to the city!" Jeremy warned from above.

"Okay, okay," Odd barked in irritation. As the trio walked cautiously through the tunnel, the veins alongside them pumped vibrantly. Jade felt a rumbling beneath her boots, and she about faced and hissed at the oncoming threat; a Megatank, which was rolling directly towards them, and was just large enough to fill the entire tunnel and crush anything in front of it, including them.

"Great," Jade shouted, throwing her paws in exasperation into the air.

"Houston, we have a problem!" Odd chuckled nervously as the trio began to book it away from the threat of becoming pancakes. The trembling beneath their feet grew more and more intense, and Jade felt panic fill her veins as she felt the Megatank gaining on them.

At long last, just at the very last second of hope, the tunnel opened up into a pit, and the three dove free from the immediate threat with but a hair's width of clearance from the Megatank's armor. It charged forward and slammed to a stop at the base of a tall, ivory tower with black, throbbing veins at the base; around it, a menacing aura of red light swirled.

"The activated tower," Jade breathed, yanking herself to her feet.

"We've found the activated tower, Jeremy," Odd sighed, rising to his feet in pain.

"Great!" Jeremy exclaimed from above. "Well done, now all you have to do is deactivate it."

"Okay," Odd said, his tail swishing behind him in irritation. "Just give me a minute to say hello to an old buddy of mine." He smirked confidently, standing before the Megatank as its shell split in two, revealing it's Eye.

"Cut the courtesy," Jeremy barked from above. "You only have fifty life points left, you can't let him hit you!" Jade strode up to her brother with an equally confident smile; she might not feel comfortable with Sissy ragging on her constantly, but here, on Lyoko, she was a deadly assassin.

"Don't worry, Jeremy," Jade smiled. "I've never been good at making new friends, and this brute isn't an exception." On cue, the Megatank's laser shot forward, and Jade and Odd had to dodge to opposite sides to avoid being hit. As the duo rolled out of their leap, they had to sprint to avoid the following attacks.

Jade danced closer and closer, leaping and rolling just out of harm's way, and taking all of the monster's attention. As Odd snuck around the spherical beast, Jade shot random arrows at it, angering it further. Finally, just as she was about to dodge free one last time, a unfortunately placed rock on the ground found its way underneath her foot; as she screamed in pain as she rolled her ankle, her screech was cut short as the Megatank's laser sliced through her, devirtualizing her instantly.

The Megatank began to roll around in confusion, searching for its other target. "Looking for me?" Odd taunted as he hopped on top of the wire rib. "Impact!" He shot a dart directly into the center of the Eye, and backflipped off just in time as the ball exploded on the far wall.

"Jeremy, is- "

"Jade's okay, Odd. She came through the scanner just fine." Jeremy's reassurance from above caused Odd's tension to instantly ease. "Go on, Aelita," he continued. "It's up to you!" As Aelita melted through the tower's base, Jeremy devirtualized Odd, and waited patiently for Aelita's confirmation.

"Tower deactivated," she breathed, finally feeling at ease.

"Return to the past, now," Jeremy commanded, pressing the "enter" button on his keyboard decisively. Jade, who was helping her dizzy brother from the scanner, was enveloped in a blinding white light, and for a moment, her mind was completely wiped blank as time reversed.

"Ulrich?" Milly's tiny voice wavered in apprehension. "Would you be my date to the dance tonight?" A single, forbidden tear of weakness slipped down her red face. Ulrich grinned, thankful that he had been given this chance to set things right. He sauntered over to the little girl, grasped her shoulders comfortingly, and knelt in front of her, a reassuring smile playing on his lips.

"I'd be glad to Milly," Ulrich grinned, tilting his head. Milly's face changed from one of pure horror to uncontrollable joy, and turned to Sissy to rub it in the elder girl's face. "I'll see you here at eight."

"Really?" she squeaked, hardly believing her luck.

"Well, sure! You're not to mad at me, are you Yumi?" he said with a knowing smirk, turning to his friend.

"Not at all! Besides, my secret admirer will be taking me to the dance tonight, right, Odd?" Yumi smiled, winking at her purple friend. Sissy stuttered in surprise and disgust, struggling to find a comeback and save her pride.

"Well, look at that then, Jade," Sissy finally shouted. "Looks like you'll have to cry yourself to sleep in your room again tonight." Jade felt her anger bubble down inside of her, and felt herself physically puff up.

"Actually Sissy, Jeremy asked me to go with him last night," she laughed in glee. "Looks like you're the only one who will be alone tonght!" As the upperclassman laughed at Sissy's baffled face, Milly turned to Tamiya.

"You are recording Tamiya, I hope," Milly said, looking over at her best friend.

"You bet I am; this is a scoop!" she replied, not taking her gaze off of the view finder.

"A super scoop," Milly nodded in agreement.

 **Dear God. That was the longest single chapter I have ever written! Oh well, it's worth it for my requester! Since these chapters are so lengthy, there will be a significant amount of time in between postings for it! If you don't want to have to check daily, just Follow the story! Until next time my Lyoko Lovers!**


	2. Holiday in the Fog

Jade held her breath as Jim's shouts of confusion and surprise rang through the hall. Kiwi dashed by and out the door of the teacher's quarters, followed heatedly by our physical education instructor.

"Way to go, Kiwi," Odd whispered in excitement. We slowly slinked out from behind the wall we were using as cover, and Odd began heading to the back door. Jade snagged his sleeve, pulling his attention back to her.

"I want to watch the show," she said, pointing to the window that had a perfect view of the courtyard. Odd nodded, and the siblings walked quietly over to the window sill and peered down onto the moonlit scene. Below, Jeremy and Ulrich rattled and shook several cans of spray paint, creating a rather insulting portrait of Jim on the brick wall. As Kiwi approached them, Ulrich fled into the shadows while Jeremy continued to add the finishing touches on the image. Kiwi dashed by, and Jim, noticing a student out of bed well past curfew, stopped his canine pursuit and turned his attention to the programmer.

"Jeremy, you mind telling me what you're doing outside at this hour? And that, huh? What is that suppose to be?" Jim shouted, gesturing wildly to the wet paint on the wall. As his heavy eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and he saw that the graffiti was in fact a rather insulting depiction of himself, he couldn't stop the red from burning his cheeks as he growled at the student standing smugly before him.

"If I had more time, I could've done the eyes better," Jeremy chuckled, grinning up at his professor with all the devilish joy of a puppy.

"Belpois! Report to principal Delmas' office first thing in the morning!" Jim hollered before stomping back into the teacher's hall.

"We've done all we can, let's get out of here before we get caught too," Jade whispered to her twin. As the two slipped out the back door, they could her Jim's pounding footsteps and mumbled curses as he returned to his room. The sibling's scampered across the midnight campus, and silently made their way into their own rooms.

Jade waited restlessly in her bed all night, barely sleeping, for two reasons. One: She couldn't wait for vacation to begin the following morning, and two: She couldn't believe Jeremy Belpois, star student and role model, was willing to sacrifice his reputation and vacation for their virtual war front. The next morning, when Odd shouted at her to get up faster, she jumped out of bed and got dressed so fast that the flinging of random clothing decorated her room with fabric like a tornado would. She and the other Lyoko Warriors sat patiently outside the principal's office.

The door opened, and with a final reprimand from Delmas, we strolled out of the office and into the foyer, Jeremy following slowly behind us. "Tell us, what'd he say?" Odd asked quickly, unable to contain his curiousity.

"Oh, he gave me detention for the whole week of vacation," Jeremy sighed. For a few moments, we all pretended to be saddened, but quickly, as Jeremy looked up at us from his pout, we could see his gleeful smirk spread across his face.

"Cool, he really let you have it!" Odd smiled, relieved.

"As punishments go, you're a champion!" Ulrich smiled, breathing a sigh of relief as we began heading outside.

"I'm sure we couldn't have done better than that!" Yumi grinned, impressed with Jeremy's rebellious side. Behind us, Sissy, Nicholas, and Herb were in the waiting area outside the office, sprawled on the plush green couches.

"Anyway, X.A.N.A won't be getting any vacation this time!" Jeremy nodded, feeling a sense of security. Jade glanced out from beneath her bangs, and saw her nemesis, the principal's daughter, eyeing their group with sinister curiosity.

"Hey guys, come on, we better go grab our bags," Jade said quietly, beginning to push her friends out the door faster. "Our parents will be here to pick us all up soon." As the five students left the building, none of them heard the speculation that the queen bee and her henchmen muttered.

Ulrich and Odd raced to their dorm, shouting taunts at each other, as the others followed behind at a more relaxed pace, chuckling at the other's antics and discussing their plans for the holidays. As they headed outside, it was clear to everyone that Ulrich was still in a grumpy mood.

"Something wrong, Ulrich?" Jade asked quietly, trying to hide her blush behind her light hair.

"Of course something's wrong," Ulrich groaned, frustrated. "You two get to go, and see your parents on the other side of the planet. Yumi is off to a vacation in the mountains, and what do I get? A whole week of math tutoring." He sighed as Odd threw his arm roughly around his best friend's shoulder and ruffled his hair.

"If they think they can make a good student out of you in one week," Odd laughed , shaking his head, "then I say good luck to them! It sounds like Mission Impossible, if you ask me." Ulrich squeezed his eyes shut and growled in irritation before shaking his best friend's arm off.

"No one asked you," Jade sighed, rolling her eyes. As Odd slugged his counterpart on the arm, Yumi turned her head to Jeremy.

"You sure you can manage on your own without us?" She inquired worriedly, thinking of all the things that could go wrong.

"No sweat, and if X.A.N.A leaves me alone, I'll be able to work on Aelita's materialization," Jeremy reassured her with a smile. As his mind began to wander to the beautiful, intelligent girl locked in cyberspace, his daydream was interrupted by a high, and rather mean, voice.

"Oh don't worry, he's not going to be alone," Sissy said, stepping out in front of the group with a flip of her onyx locks. "I'm staying at school too, and I'll look after him." Her eyeliner gaze narrowed as she appraised the shy blonde, and with a suggestive smile, she said, "I'll be his guardian angel." Ulrich and Yumi groaned, and Odd and Jade shared a look before nodding; each understood what the other wanted.

"Wow Jeremy, are you lucky," Odd drawled, voice dripping with sarcasm, as he rolled his eyes.

"Ew, gag," Jade choked, stepping up beside Jeremy on the other side. "Are you sure you don't want me to go by some church and get you some holy water? You might need it."

"Can it, freak!" Sissy hissed, her eyes narrowing. "Last time I checked, I was the normal one, and you were the weird, gothic chick that everyone was scared of." Her words ripped through Jade and cut her to the quick, worming their way into her insecurities. Jade blinked back her angry tears and took an aggressive step forward.

"Watch it, Elizabeth," Jade shouted as her brother and Ulrich grabbed her shoulders and held her back. "If I were you, I'd watch that pretty little mouth of yours before I shove my foot down it!"

"Della Robbia!" Everyone froze at the sound of Jim's voice. As he stomped up from behind the group of five, Jade physically shrank, her hurt pride and anger melting to foreboding. "You better watch your tongue, treat others the way you want to be treated, didn't your parents ever teach you that?"

"It's not my parents who forgot to teach that," Jade grumbled, glaring at the ground, hating Sissy's smug grin.

"Oh, so you think you're a rebel, just like Belpois here, huh?" Jim chuckled, leaning down over the junior high student. "Well if you think you're Jeremy, better treat you like him! You're getting detention for the entire vacation as well!" The group shouted with surprise and began talking over each other in protest as Sissy watched on with a grin.

"You can't do that!" Odd shouted above the others, his fists clenched.

"I just did," Jim shouted back. He turned his attention back to Jeremy and Jade, who both looked at each other with a rather hopeless look. "Alright, you two, you think that wall is going to clean itself? Get to work, NOW!" As Jade and Jeremy flinched back with clenched eyes, Sissy's mailicious giggle slipped out; it was clear she was enjoying the show.

"Go on, laugh while you still can, young lady," Jim said with a smirk of his own. "You're father told me to monitor your studying, and that's what I intend to do." Sissy couldn't stifle her gasp of surprise, and it was Yumi and Ulrich's turn to hide their chuckles. As their teacher began leading the three misfits away, Ulrich watched on and shook his head, before saying to the other two, "I don't know why, but… all of a sudden, my math tutoring doesn't seem all that bad."

Thirty seconds later and after a few quiet swears under their breath, Jade and Jeremy found themselves scrubbing the wall with gritted teeth, their knuckles rubbing raw against the rough sponge and sharp brick edges. Jim sat back, rather relaxed, and sipped a grape soda with ease. After a few moments, Jim inquired after Sissy's progress with the math work she was contemplating, and after a few lame excuses, her eyes brightened.

"Maybe if I gave Jeremy and Jade some help I would do better, you know clear my head," Sissy suggested as she stood up. Jade and Jeremy froze, and peeked at one another from the corner of their eyes. "My father always says that manual labor is good for the brain." She gave her sweetest, most innocent smile, and Jim stood up and patted the young lady on the back, impressed.

"Well, I guess not all kids are lazy after all," Jim mused, assessing the girl's skinny arms from behind his sunglasses. "Good idea, Sissy; stay there, I'll go get you a sponge." The supervisor retreated quickly, and when his form disappeared around the school corner, her angelic smile faded into a sly smirk.

"Oh, what a shame to have to wipe that all off," she drawled, standing over the two other students with an air of superiority. "I guess I'm not the first one to recognize your talent. It's really well done, a work of art. By the way, did you do it all by yourself, or did your friend Xana help you?" Jade stiffened physically, and tried to wipe her face clean of emotion as she and Jeremy turned to the principal's daughter.

"Sissy, what on earth are you talking about?" Jeremy asked simply. He understood that she thought X.A.N.A was a name, not an acronym, and was less concerned than Odd's sister.

"Don't play dumb, Jeremy, I heard you talking to the other kids about Xana, she your girlfriend? Maybe I know her? Come on Jeremy, tell me." Jeremy returned to scrubbing the wall, and Jade followed suit nervously.

"Sissy, with the way you worm your way into everyone's lives, if Jeremy had a girlfriend, you would already know it," Jade sighed, scrubbing the wall quickly, irritated.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sissy hissed, narrowing her eyes at the back of Jade's head, "I didn't realize I was talking to the nobody. Why don't you just be a good girl and keep your stupid thoughts to yourself, got it?" Jade bit her lip and steadied her resolve not to cry, squeezing her eyes shut as her scrubbing became more frantic. Jeremy glanced over, and felt a pang of pity for the sensitive girl; Sissy had a way of sniffing out the vulnerable ones, and once she had seen Jade's meek demeanor…well, Jade was Sissy's chew toy.

"Knock it off , Sissy," Jeremy growled, turning back around to the queen bee and drawing her fire towards him. "Jade's right, X.A.N.A is the name of a rock group, not my girlfriend. Besides, it doesn't surprise me you haven't heard of them, considering the junk you listen too."

"What do you think I am, an idiot or something?" Sissy shouted, angry that she couldn't find any dirt on Jeremy's group.

"You said it, not me," Jeremy chuckled. Jade laughed quietly behind her free hand. "Here, since you volunteered to help us, it's time we took a break," he grinned taking Jade's sponge from her hand and shoving it into Sissy's grasp. Jade giggled and bounced over to where Jeremy sat in Jim's vacant chair, and leaned on the back of it, enjoying the show.

"So Jade," Sissy hissed over her shoulder, " are you jealous that Xana is Jeremy's girlfriend? I saw you two together at the school dance, you know. Must hurt so bad, knowing that you've been left by someone who is even more of a loser than you are." Jade whimpered quietly, again hurt, and stared hard at the dirt beside her shoes, willing the tears to dry. No, Jade didn't have any romantic notions as to Jeremy and her own relationship; Jeremy was head over heels for Aelita, and besides, Jeremy was like an younger, wiser brother to her; they had only gone together so they wouldn't be alone and could have a good time, as friends. The one she really wanted was Ulrich, but she knew that given the choice between herself, Yumi, or Sissy, she most certainly wouldn't be first picked.

"I told you already, Sissy," Jeremy snapped angrily, "X.A.N.A is a rock band! And if I recall correctly, you went to the dance all by yourself. You know, you could've snagged a "loser" like me if you had been fast enough…no, wait, you couldn't have. I would have chosen a eighty year old granny before taking you." Sissy growled wordlessly in anger, and Jade laughed openly, glad that her friend had defended her. Jeremy was glad to see Jade's mood improving, and intent on keeping her laughing, began to imitate Jim. "A little more elbow grease, come on, keep scrubbing! Come on, you can do better than that!" Jade snorted with glee, enjoying Jeremy's sudden sharp tongue, but froze when Jim, having arrived with an extra sponge, cleared his throat behind them.

After a day of wrinkled finger tips and sunburned cheeks, the three teenagers were finally allowed to retire to their rooms. Late that evening, A quiet knock on her door awoke Jade slowly. Jeremy slipped in and closed the door silently behind himself.

"Jeremy?"Jade yawned, rubbing her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I've been up, working on Aelita's materialization program. I'm heading over to the factory right now to crunch some numbers on the supercomputer's multi-core gigahertz processor right now, want to come?"  
"Giga…what? You never went to sleep?" Jade mumbled, rubbing her eyes harder.

"Do you want to keep me company over to the factory, yes or no?" Jeremy said curtly. She hopped out of bed, threw on her clothes while he waited with his back turned in the corner, and together, snuck from the dorms. The duo headed down to the storage space beneath the auditorium, to the hidden passage that lead to the sewers, when Jeremy heard a bang form a nearby closed door. Upon opening it, a thick, dark purple fog, spilled out and into the hallway, and Jeremy began coughing violently before slamming the door shut again.

"Jeremy! Jeremy, are you okay?" Jade asked breathlessly, pounding on his back. A sudden firm grasp on her shoulder caused her to scream as the pair whipped about to find Jim eyeing them with a grin.

"Aren't you two a little too young to be all alone together in a basement? Honestly, Belpois, I always thought of you as more of a gentleman!"

"Jim, something awful has happened! Have a look, in there!" Jim grimaced and flung the door open, and Jeremy gasped at the sight that met him: absolutely nothing, save for several oil drums knocked over, and a few paint cans spilling open.

"Looks like there was a hurricane in there! This had better not been the doing of you two!"

"The smoke," Jade stuttered in shock. "It…It's disappeared!"

"Not even a trace," Jeremy whispered to his friend with a grim look. "It's X.A.N.A." Jim dragged the two children by their collars to each of their rooms and quarantined them for the evening, threatening that if they were to come out, they'd have a lot more explaining to do to their parents when they arrived in the morning. Jade laid in bed the whole night, staring out her window, watching the sun rise with pain staking slowness. When it was still very early, her phone pinged quietly beside her as a text message arrived.

 _Meet in the forest in five. ~Jeremy._ Jade quietly slipped from her bed, scanned up and down the hall for the suspicious gym teacher, then sprinted across the campus to the unsuspecting manhole. She quickly scaled down the cold rungs of the damp, metal ladder, and fell to the pathway that ran alongside the drainage system with a thud. As she rose, she saw that Jeremy was already on his scooter, waiting impatiently. The two skidded rapidly through the dank tunnels, before clamoring up and out into the early morning sunshine that lit the bridge leading to the old factory.

Jeremy quickly activated his monitors, and began researching the night's events. "No," Jeremy whispered, his eyes wide.

"What?" Jade asked nervously, leaning over his shoulder apprehensively. "What is it?"

"Remember the labels on those spilled bottles last night?" Jeremy sighed, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "Well, it's even worse than I thought. The spilled bottles contained an extremely poisonous substance. If the data from the computer is right, the gas can even be deadly in cases of extended inhalation."

"But.. Sissy and Jim, they're still at the school," Jade groaned.

"That just means we have to work fast," Jeremy said decisively, cracking his knuckles. His fingers began to fly across the keyboard in a blur, his glasses reflecting the various screens and windows that appeared on the monitor at his command. After a few tense seconds to programmer angst, a quiet, repetitive beat sounded from the computer, and Jeremy's face broke into a confident grin. "Bingo. Aelita, I've found the tower. It's thirty seven degrees south in the forest sector."

"Alright," Aelita's voice crackled over the feedback, "but I am nowhere near it, and I'm going to need some help."

"I know four volunteers who would be happy to cut their vacations short and help," Jade smiled at her friend through the screen, before ripping her phone from her pocket and texting her friends rapidly.

"Well alright then," Aelita smiled. "I'm going to head for the Way Tower. Meet me in the forest sector as soon as the others arrive." Aelita's portrait blinked off screen, and Jeremy watched her arrows progress across the desert sector as Jade contacted each of the other Warriors in turn.

"Jeremy," Aelita's sweet voice called across the channels, "I'm in the forest sector now."

"I'm sending Jade over right now, and Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi are on their way. I better get back to the school, someone needs to warn Sissy and Jim."

Jade dashed into the elevator, and tapped her foot impatiently as it slowly descended the floors to the scanner room. She hopped into the brightly lit scanner, and squeezed her eyes shut against the abrasive illumination. "Transfer Jade, Scanner Jade. Virtualization." Jade stomach flipped in her stomach and she barely contained a dry heave as she whirled into the virtual world of Lyoko.

Jade landed with feline grace on the grassy floor of the floating Forest sector, and quickly scanned the area around her before finding a pink bobbing head of hair to her left.

"I'm glad to see you look well, Jade," Aelita called, running up to her friend.

"It's great to see you!" Jade grinned with unusual enthusiasm; on Lyoko, no one, not even Sissy, could limit the things that she could do.

"The tower is this way," Aelita said, gesturing to their right.

"Well, we had better get going then," Jade smiled, before taking off to the east, Aelita sprinting behind her. Eons seemed to pass as the virtual trees whizzed by the pair, and the vibrations of the activated tower's veins shook the ground beneath Jade's paws. "We're almost there," Jade called over her shoulder.

"But where are the others?" Aelita shouted back.

"Sorry, ladies," Jeremy's strained voice crackled from above.

"Jeremy?" Aelita asked with concern, staring at the dark yellow sky above. "Are you alright?"

"Some trouble at the school," Jeremy coughed, struggling to speak. "Odd and Yumi are on their way." Jade and Aelita skidded to a halt, and Jade felt her heart beat faster with concern.

"And Ulrich?" Jade whimpered. "Is he okay?"  
"He stayed behind to try and help Sissy and Jim," Jeremy said. As he transferred her brother and friend into the sector, Jade's mind raced with everything that could possibly happen to Ulrich.

"Have you guys seen any monsters?" Yumi asked the moment she landed on the ground.

"Not yet," Jade said as Aelita shook her head.

"Guess you didn't look very hard," Odd grumbled, pointing to some distance away. The screech of mechanical legs rubbing together frantically grew louder as several Kankrelats approached. As the combat began, Jeremy's frantic voice wove through the trees.

"Look, I don't want to rush you, my friends, but things are getting kind of urgent here!"

"What about us!" Odd shouted back, spinning and twirling to dodge aggressive lasers. "What do you think we're doing, huh? Getting a sun tan?" He shot two Laser Arrows, both of which were dodged. One of the creatures fired a beam directly at Aelita, and she screamed with fear. In the nick of time, Yumi's fan blocked the way before impact, and with a battle cry, tossed her fan in retaliation. Her fan sliced expertly through her target.

"Odd, watch out!" Jade shouted as she dove behind a boulder for cover. Odd seamlessly cartwheeled through the air, dodging a volley of lasers. When a lucky shot slammed into his chest and threw him onto his back, Jade shouted in panic. She scampered out and grabbed her brother by the tail, and dragged him behind a tree, where the other two girls were hiding.

"The only way to access the tower is via a tree branch," Jeremy reported from above. "However, it happens to be behind the monsters, and so you're going to have to find a way around them."

"I might have an idea for blocking the monsters, you two take care of Aelita," Yumi instructed. Jade shook her head viciously.

"Odd can protect Aelita just fine on his own," she argued. "There are still two Kankrelats, you need my help more than he does."

"Jade, Aelita is more important than me!" Yumi growled, tucking her head behind the tree's trunk in time to avoid a laser.

"No one is more important than another," Jade said quietly. The two girls stared at each other, for a moment, the whirring of unfriendly fire filling the silence, before Yumi finally offered a small grin and a nod.

"Let's go, princess," Odd smiled, grabbing Aelita's hand and dragging her behind him as they dodged from behind cover. Jade rolled in front of them and shot a single Laser Arrow with a cry, and the small digital creature exploded on impact while her brother and her friend ran around behind her.

The second Kankrelat began to circle the tree and search for Yumi. "Hey, over here!" Jade called, waving her arms wildly. "Laser Arrow!" She shot several darts rapidly, all of which the Kankrelat dodged before returning fire. Two of the lasers buried themselves in Jade's chest, and she feltthe wind get knocked from her lungs as she fell to her knees.

"Jade!" Jeremy shouted from the sky," Don't let yourself get hit again!"

"Oh I'm sorry," Jade gasped sarcastically, trying to regain her breath as she rolled out of the way of another laser, "I didn't realize that I purposely let myself get shot!" She hopped out of the way of another laser just in time as a huge boulder behind the Kanlrelat, surrounded by an aura of light, lifted from the ground and hovered directly above the monster. With a grin, Jade laughed and pointed to the rock above the little creature. In confusion, it look above itself just in time to see the rock before it came crashing down on top of it, crushing it completely.

"Nice job, Yumi!" Jade smiled.

"Couldn't have done it without you-" her sentence was cut off abruptly as a laser slammed into her back and threw her onto her face.

"Yumi!" Jade cried, dashing across the ground on all fours to crouch protectively over her friend. She looked up in time to see a hidden Kankrelat creep out from behind a rotting log before it's beam smashed into her face. Jade tried to scream in pain, but her mouth's molecules were already separated as she dissolved into the air. Her lungs screeched for breath, and she tried her hardest to inhale, but her divirtualizing atoms scattered as she warped back into the scanner. Slowly, she felt herself rebuild in the metal cylinder, and the moment her body was completely reattached and the scanner doors slid open with a hiss, she took a desperate gasp of air, her eyes popping open with relief as she breathed heavily.

Seconds later, in the scanner before her, Yumi devirtualized as well, sucking in air herself greedily. After a few seconds, Yumi's fist slammed onto the cold metal wall in anger. "It's ok," Jade said weakly, trying to reassure her buddy. "I think we got them to the tower." The pair limped into the elevator and rose to the computer room, which was filled with a pale blue light as Jeremy monitored the mission's progress.

"Welcome back to earth, ladies," Jeremy greeted them , his eyes not leaving his monitor.

"Gee, thanks," Yumi snapped, still grumpy from being devirtualized. The two young women walked over to the programmer and hung on his arm rests, staring at the screen he was watching.

"Can we get a visual from Odd?" Jade asked, curious as her brother's location.

"No problem," Jeremy replied. A few taps of the buttons later, and a new window appeared, showing Aelita kneeling before the moat of water surrounding the tower. As her angelic voice rang in the room, and her Creativity formed a stepping stone path of logs for her to hop across, Yumi finally smiled in victory. Aelita flitted across quickly and entered the tower, and as Odd turned his head and saw the final Kankrelat approach from behind, he laughed.

"Sorry, X.A.N.A," Odd chuckled, eyeing the small monster. "Looks like it's Warriors 1, and X.A.N.A none." The Kankrelat fired rapid lasers in anger, and Odd laughed with glee and he dodged and rolled free of harm's way, carefree in his newly achieved victory.

"Aelita, hurry up, Ulrich is still in danger," Jeremy cried into his headset.

"Tower deactivated," she replied coolly. With a sigh of relief, Jeremy slammed his hand down onto the enter key.

"Return to the Past, now," he said. The last thing Jade remembered seeing was her brother's teasing wave goodbye to the Kankrelat before her vision blurred with a blinding white light.

"Come on, Jeremy, you don't have to insist on getting punished again. X.A.N.A isn't going to reactivate this soon, you could give yourself a short vacation," Ulrich sighed, as he and Jeremy painted the walls again at Kadic Academy. Jade and Odd watched from above quietly, just as they had before. A quiet silence lasted but a moment between her two friends below, and Jeremy turned with a rather serious look on his face.

"Not as long as Aelita stays virtual," he said decisively, his face as set as stone. Jade rested her elbow on the window sill, and her cheek in her palm as she sighed with content, glad to see her adopted family safe once more. "And this time," Jeremy continued, "considering what we painted, Jim can't be too angry!" As if on cue, a sharp barking sounded, and the tiny dog zipped by, his tongue lolling out of his long snout simply. Ulrich took several retreating steps into the shadows, then paused, before returning to the revealing light of the open courtyard and throwing his arm companionably around Jeremy's shoulder.

"Come to think of it," he grinned at his bespectacled friend, "I'm going to stick around. Anything is better than another one of Ms. Schmidt's math lessons!" The two boys grinned and appraised the new portrait they had created of Jim; their professor's eyes were glowing with pride, his cheek bones high and handsome, and atop his lusciously painted hair, a sparkling crown claimed him as king.

As Jim trotted by after the dog and began to chastise the boys gently, Jade turned to her brother with a grin of peace. "He really does love that little pink haired girl doesn't he?" she asked her brother. Odd nodded with a huge smile, causing his gelled hair to bounce slightly.

"Considering that she was his very first friend, even before the four of us, I'd say she was the one who taught him how to love the rest of us." The two siblings snuck from the teacher's quarters with a light hearted skip in their step, glad that they could protect the ones they cared for most once again.


	3. Cruel Dilemma

Jade itched the back of her neck in boredom as the principal droned on about the new stadium that was being built on campus. Out of her group of friends, the only one who seemed truly interested in the procedure was Ulrich; he was looking forward to schooling more of his classmates in soccer. "This magnificent stadium is being built in close cooperation with the Board of Education," Delmas continued, his bushy mustache bouncing on his aged face. "Soon, you will be enjoying the latest in school equipment, and I am personally delighted, since my duty is to provide you with the finest conditions possible, and in all the areas, both intellectual and athletic." About her, the other students began to whisper and giggle with excitement, the possibilities of the future seeming endless. "Just as many juveniles say, a sound mind, and a sound body…"

"Wow," Odd whispered to his comrades around him, "can he talk! Do we really have to listen to all this?"

"Not really," Ulrich mused, shaking his head. "You could've stayed with Jeremy if you wanted too." He noted the two, huge bulldozers behind his principal; how cool would it be to drive one of those?

"What is Einstein up to, anyway?" Yumi asked inattentively, already knowing the answer.

"The usual," Jade responded quietly, an amused smile on her lips as she thought of her intellectually gifted friend. "He's glued to his computer screen in a big cyber conversation with his darling Aelita." Yumi smiled, glad that her lonely friend was finally finding someone he could connect to in an intellectual manner. Odd began making obnoxious kissy noises, pretending to French kiss his hand to the snickered laughs of his surrounding friends.

"Odd," Delmas called from the front of the group, "mind explaining to the group exactly what you're doing?" As Odd stuttered some explanation, his classmates around him erupted into laughter.

Back in Jeremy's room, the young programmer was hard at work, his fingers whizzing across the keyboard, trying to race time itself as he made his best effort to bring his crush to Earth. "Just a few more calculations to go, and my devirtualization process will be complete."

Aelita's face brightened into a smile as she thought about what it would be like to live on earth… to feel of the wind, to hear the birds singing…to be able to hold Jeremy's hand. "Do you really think that it will work, Jeremy?" she blurted out, her pink head bobbing in excitement. "Do I really have a chance to be dematerialized and becoming someone of your world, someone like you?" Jeremy munched on his fruity candy with a grin, wondering at how even over a digital screen she was still a beauty to behold.

"I sure hope so," Jeremy nodded. "One thing's for sure; I've never been closer to the answer than I am now."

"Honestly, it's so hard to believe," Aelita sighed as her mind began to wander in a common daydream. "We can be face to face in the same room together, we can touch each other, we can even kiss." Jeremy's face had never felt hotter as it burned with a severe blush.

"Uh, yeah," he choked, pounding on his chest to dislodge the candy piece that had wedged itself in his throat. "That, uh would be, um….interesting! Oh, uh… I guess…" God, how could girls express themselves so well? How could they be so comfortable with this kinda' stuff!? As Aelita watched him adoringly through the screen, she grinned in content; sure, he was awkward, but his awkwardness simply added to his charm for her. "Anyway," he continued, shaking his head to clear the visions of their lips touching in his mind, "get ready; I'm starting the test program." He lightly tapped the enter key, and the screen immediately swept Aelita's expectant face to the side of the screen, and in the center, appeared her body's devirtualization profile. Steady beeping and a pulsation of light told Jeremy that the program was being ran. He sat with a moist brow and gritted teeth as he prayed for success.

The screen disappeared, and as the program powered down loudly, a red exclamation mark appeared on the screen, turning about slowly, tauntingly. "I don't get it," Jeremy whimpered, burying his face into the comfort of his arms, which were folded on the computer desk.

"It's not the end of the world," Aelita said comfortingly from across the digital void, her voice heavy with disappointment. "I'm sure that one day, Jeremy, you will succeed."

"Oh, Aelita," Jeremy moaned in frustration, shaking his head furiously, disgusted with his failure, "I'm…I'm beginning to wonder if I'm up to the job, if I'm good enough for such a complicated program." Aelita's face warped in sadness and disagreement; to her, he was absolutely perfect. When Jeremy saw her face, he felt extreme guilt, and looked away from the monitor. "I'm sorry, Aelita, I'm just tired and jumpy, that's all," he assured her. "I better go outside and stretch my legs. See you later." As he left the room, leaving the young lady all alone in her virtual planet, Jeremy felt his disappointment in himself grow; if he was smarter, if he was better, maybe he wouldn't be wandering the grounds all alone. Maybe, Aelita would be there, holding his hand.

He strode down the hall and stared out the window at the end, taking cleansing breaths, trying to calm his frustration. Down the hall, just out of his hearing range, the twins walked by Jeremy's door, on their way to Odd's room. As they passed by Jeremy's room, they saw that the door wasn't all the way closed.

"That's weird," Jade noted quietly.

"Jeremy?" Odd called into the door, pushing it open slowly. As the pair walked in, Jeremy turned at the sound of a door creaking. He began walking back towards his room, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. "What's this? Looks like Jeremy's materialization program," Odd said, sitting at the computer chair. "Oh, look, candy!" Odd quipped, grabbing the bag hastily, popping a few pieces in his mouth.

"Odd," Jade sighed, "That's not yours, you-"

"GUYS!" Jeremy's shrill voice caused the two warriors to jump in fright. Odd's hand squeezed the bag of candy, causing the bag's contents to fly into the air and around them. "How many times have I told you not to touch my computer when I'm not around? There is months of work in there!"

"Relax," Odd smiled, holding up his hands in surrender. "I didn't hurt your little toy."

"Odd," Jade snapped at her brother's snide comment. "Watch your tongue!" Jade and Odd had a secret the other's didn't know; their parents weren't more than kids themselves. With no real mother and father, they were all the other had.

"Oh, no," Jeremy sighed, plopping down into the computer chair. "You're such a cosmic creep," he glowered at Odd. "Now look at what you've done! Those keys are very sensitive." Odd hummed, smirking at Jeremy's over reaction. Jade elbowed him roughly in the ribs, and he grunted in frustration.

"Okay, okay. A little piece of candy isn't going to wreck your keyboard." Jade glared at her brother, irritated with his lack of sincerity. Jeremy wiped the scattered pieces off his keyboard quickly, mumbled in irritation.

Suddenly, he froze, his eyes staring at the computer screen in disbelief. "This is crazy," he whispered. "This is really mega insane!" He shook his head in surprise, eyes wide behind the lenses of his glasses. His hands began flying across the keyboard, pressing the keys deftly. Odd yawned in boredom and stretched, stuffing his face with another handful of sweets, while Jade leaned over her friend's shoulder, trying to see what it was that he was seeing.

"Jeremy, what's happening?" she asked inquisitively. Jeremy remained silent, and quietly tapped the enter key. Aelita's portrait appeared once more on the monitor, and the inquisitive beeping began again.

"Yes, it worked!" Jeremy suddenly shouted, hopping out of his chair and dancing about the room. "Odd, you're a genius, you know that?"

"Hey, make up your mind," Odd sighed with a grin. "Am I a genius, or a creep?"

"You're a creepy genius," Jeremy replied, bending back over the keyboard. "You didn't do it on purpose, but by dropping the candies on the keyboard, you modified and relaunched my program! I don't know exactly how or what happened, but it works! Thanks, Odd!"

"Who's an Einstein now?" Odd grinned, shooting his pal a thumbs up. "So what now? Are you going to materialize Aelita.

"Well…yeah. The problem is I only get one try and that's it. But that's because I didn't see what kind of program the candy typed in."

"Yeah, so?" Odd grinned.

"There's only one Aelita," Jade smirked, winking at Jeremy.

"Go and tell the others," Jeremy said, his grin so wide, Jade was sure he was going to crack his face. "I'll tell the good news to Aelita." The twins dashed from the room, whispering in excitement. To finally have one of their best friends on Earth with them? This had been their goal for months now.

They found Ulrich and Yumi practicing their martial arts in the gym, and wasted no time with words; they simply grabbed each of their friends wrists and began dragging them along.

"Where's the fire guys?" Yumi asked, trying to pull her hand from Jade's iron grip.

"Yeah, cool it! What's going on?" Ulrich grumbled, trying to keep up with Odd's reckless pace.

"No time to explain," Odd said, dragging their friends quickly into the dorm hall. They crashed into Jeremy's room, and the four panted heavily, trying to regain their composure.

"Someone want to explain to me why I was just dragged like Kiwi on a leash across campus?" Ulrich finally growled, frustration coating his voice.

"Jeremy has some exciting news," Jade sang, bouncing on her toes, nodding in encouragement to her be-speckled friend. While her brother, Ulrich, and Yumi flopped onto Jeremy's bed to catch their breath, Jeremy spun around in his chair, the giant grin still in place.

"I did it. I made the materialization program, and I can now bring Aelita to Earth." The room was still, and no one dared to breath for several seconds. Finally, with a frown, Yumi shook her head in denial.

"Jeremy, hold on," she cautioned, her lips taunt.

"Yumi, it's now or never, we may not get a second chance!" Jeremy argued, leaping from his computer chair. "What if there's some kind of bug?" he mused, pacing the room heatedly. "I'll never be able to set up the program again!" Jeremy's cheeks flushed; he hated how his voice cracked. It made his argument sound weak, childish, and invalid.

"Listen, you can't just materialize Aelita like that without making a lot of preparations." Jeremy growled in anger, his hands fisting in his hair. Jade gave his shoulder a supportive squeeze, but he swatted her hand away in anger, not wanting the groups comfort, just wanting their conformity.

"I've boosted all the scanners. I've got the program going, everything is ready." Jeremy glared at each of his friends in turn, before whipping back to the monitors and sitting rigidly in the chair.

"Yeah, in your head," Ulrich scoffed, unimpressed with his scrawny friend's show of force. "Come back to Earth, Jeremy. Try to be practical for once; Aelita has no parents, and she hasn't got a birth certificate. What's more, she isn't enrolled in any school."

"She could come here. No one knows anything about the Della Robbia family, their so distant," Jade pipped in, want to be proactive. "We could say she is our cousin or something."

"Okay, fine," Ulrich nodded. "But all those other things together means she doesn't exist in our world."

"Imagine," Odd smirked, ever less serious than his sister. "Hi, I'm Aelita, and I just got here from a virtual reality." Odd batted his eyelashes flirtatiously at Jeremy, imitating Aelita's higher voice. "That's a one way ticket to the nut house," he chuckled, giving Jeremy a thumbs up.

"Cut it out," Jade growled, glaring at her twin. Odd rolled his eyes and avoided his sister's gaze, finding a fleck of paper on the carpet suddenly very interesting. "Jeremy, although my bone headed brother is a moron, he has a point," she continued on softly.

"You know, Jeremy," Aelita's soft voice came over the computer speakers, "it doesn't have to be today." She had listened quietly to the groups argument, and despite wanting to get to see the world they lived in, she agreed with Ulrich and the others. "I can wait…" Jeremy growled in anger, throwing his hands into the air and staring at the ceiling.

"Well, what do we do now?" he shouted, removing his glasses heatedly and rubbing at his eyes.

"I could put her up at my house, my folks wouldn't mind," Yumi offered. As Jade watched, she saw a shadow of sadness in her Japanese friend's eyes; no one in the group knew of the trouble Yumi had at home.

"And you could plug into the city hall computers!" Ulrich smiled, encouraged by Yumi's trailblazing attitude. "You could create a phony identity for her. Find her a new name, ya' know, all the stuff she needs."

"Then all you have to do is enroll her in our school," Jade smirked, bouncing her own suggestions off of her secret crushes.

"Try and enroll her in our classes," Odd winked at Jeremy, "That'd be really cool, huh?" The room fell silent once more, and only Aelita could see the dejected glaze that had coated Jeremy's eyes. He wanted her with him that very second, but he could see the wisdom in his friends' advice.

"Okay," he finally surrendered, "we'll get started first thing tomorrow. The other's agreed that was best, and each wandered off to their own rooms, excited for the work ahead of them.

Jeremy awoke suddenly late that evening, and after glancing about in the dark recesses of his room a moment, his slid on his glasses and hopped onto his computer chair. "Aelita," he called, putting on his headset hastily. "Are you asleep?"

"A few seconds passed, and suddenly the pink haired girl's flawless face appeared on his screen. "Am I asleep?" she giggled sweetly. "Come on, Jeremy. You know that virtual beings never sleep." Jeremy squashed the butterflies in his stomach; he felt they were so unnecessary. I mean, every time she laughed, smiled, even said his name, he could feel his control slipping. Although he wanted to maintain control over himself… he hoped that this feeling never vanished.

"I can't sleep a wink," he choked, trying to keep his voice even. "I can't stop thinking about your materialization program. I can't imagine all the things you're going to discover in our world."

"You mean like sleeping?" she winked, sending another shiver through his wiry frame.

"That's right," he chuckled, smiling at his virtual friend. "That and all sorts of things."

"Tell me more," she whispered excitedly, trying to keep a handle on her own emotions.

"Well, when you touch an object with your fingers, you have, uh, a kind of sensation. It could be a feeling of softness, or of heat… it can even be cold."

"Oh, I see," Aelita grinned, mulling it over. "I thought you only sensed with your brain."

"That's right, but it's a little more complicated than that," Jeremy sighed, trying to find a new way of explaining things. How could you explain the senses to someone who hadn't been born with the wiring to comprehend it? "Here on Earth, everyone has five senses. You, Aelita, well, you only have two of them; hearing and seeing. I mean, you can only see and hear."

"Speaking of hearing…"

"Soon you'll be able to touch and…" Jeremy bulled over Aelita's interjection, missing the sound of alarm in her voice.

"Jeremy!" she suddenly gasped, cutting off her partner mid-sentence. "I think I just heard X.A.N.A. He's up to something." Outside, Jeremy heard engines revving, wheels crunching over the ground.

"What's all that noise out there?" he stuttered nervously.

"Oh, Jeremy," Aelita cried, irritated beyond belief that their time together was interrupted again, "X.A.N.A's launched an attack!"

"Okay," Jeremy quavered, standing up from the computer chair. "Listen Aelita, go and hide inside a deactivated tower. I'll contact you from the factory." He dashed out of his bedroom door and slammed open the door across the hallway. "Odd, wake up, X.A.N.A's attacking! Odd, WAKE UP!" Odd's eye cracked open slowly.

"Wha…what did you say about carpet jacking?" he yawned, rubbing at his eyes. Jeremy shut the door behind himself, then began shaking Ulrich's sleeping form roughly.

"Ulrich, wake up!" Jeremy shouted. Ulrich swatted his hands away, grumbling to leave him alone. "It's a X.A.N.A alert!" Jeremy shouted directly into his drowsy friend's ear.

"Ahhh!" Ulrich screamed, shooting up in bed. He quickly extracted ear plugs from his ears, before looking at his younger friend in bewilderment. "What did you say?"

"I…said.." Jeremy started slowly, angrily, "IT'S A X.A.N.A ALERT,X.A.N.A IS ATTACKING!" His shrill scream rang about on the room's close walls. After Odd and Ulrich finally removed their hands from over their ears, Odd tilted his head, appraising his roommate.

"Hey, do you always sleep with those things in your ears?" Odd asked, pointing at the ear plugs.

"Yeah, Odd, always," Ulrich sighed, standing up and shaking his head. "And one of these days, I'll tell you why." The trio tiptoed down to the female floor, and slunk down the hallway. Ulrich slipped into the selected room, while Odd and Jeremy kept watch outside.

Ulrich shook the sleeping girl's shoulder gently, and when Jade rolled over and saw Ulrich above her, she could have sworn she was dreaming. "Ulrich?" she sighed dreamily, hopeful that, if it was a dream, she would never have to wake up.

"Come on, Jade, we gotta go, our friendly digital hacking program is at it again," Ulrich whispered, smiling apologetically. Jade sighed and rose out of bed, and as Ulrich slipped out, Jade threw on a bra and a jacket before joining the other's in the hallway. She glanced at her twin brother's messy hair, then smirk over at Ulrich.

"How's his snoring doing so far?" she chuckled.

"What snoring?" Odd growled defensively.

"Oh, nothing," Jade grinned innocently.

"Listen here, punk..." Odd began before he was cut off by Jeremy. Outside, the mechanical rumbling grew louder. The four dashed outside, and saw a confounding sight; two bulldozers, driving themselves.

"No need to look any further, guys," Odd huffed, "this time he picked a real winner. He's attacking us with bulldozers. Way to go X.A.N.A, real subtle."

"Jeremy," Ulrich breathed heavily, "rush over to the factory and call Yumi. Odd and I are going to try to stop these monsters."

"I'm… I'm going with Einstein," Jade said, sounding rather unsure. "There's two dozers, so only you two need to be here, and Aelita could use all the help she could get." The two boys nodded and began sprinting after the machines while Jeremy and Jade headed for the man hole in the forest. Jeremy yanked out his phone and dialed Yumi's number as they clamored clumsily down into the sewers.

"Jeremy, it's three in the flipping morning…" came Yumi's electronic voice over the speaker.

"Yumi, get up! We really need you!" Jeremy shouted into the receiver.

"Do you realize what time it is?" Yumi hissed once more over the phone. They argued for a short time longer, before Yumi confirmed she was on her way to the factory. Jeremy and Jade jumped when a hand shot in between the elevator door and the elevator shaft, stopping it from closing fully, until they saw who it was.

"Ulrich and I couldn't stop the bulldozers," Odd gasped, collapsing against his sister in the elevator. "He stayed behind, to see where their headed." They stopped at the computer room, dropped off Jeremy, then continued to the scanner room.

"Aelita," Jeremy said as soon as he got his headset on, "Jade and Odd are on their way, Yumi should be there soon."

"Hurry!" she cried in his ears. "The pulsations are getting stronger." As he began virtualizing the twins, a cell phone ringing filled is ear piece.

"Ulrich?" Jeremy called tentatively.

"Jeremy, bad news!" came his friend's voice, full of static. "I'm on the riverbed, and X.A.N.A's targeted the factory."

"No more factory means no more computers, and that means no more communication with Aelita…and the scanners! Without them, I can't virtualize her!"

"Well, hurry up and send us to Lyoko!" Jade's panicked voice said through the speakers from the scanner room. "We have to deactivate this tower!" Jeremy proceeded to send his friend's into the virtual world, and Odd suddenly felt himself land heavily on the Lyoko ground. The twins stood up wearily, their cat ears twitching, listening for trouble.

Jade's ear picked up on a kicked pebble, and she whipped about, paws raised to fire an arrow, until she saw it was her friend. "Hi, guys," Aelita waved tentatively, a taunt smile on her mouth.

"A pleasure to see you, mi'lady," Odd said with a extravagant bow.

"Focus, Odd," Jeremy's voice called from above. "We don't have long, get a move on."

"The tower is this way," Aelita said, pointing to the north.

"Then let's get a move on," Jade said as she fell to all fours, dashing across the ground, her tail streaking out behind her. After a few seconds of sprinting along, the mechanical whirring of metal legs rubbing together sounded before them. Ahead, a duo of Kankrelats crawled out from behind a pile of forest rocks.

"Talk about a reception committee," Odd mused, rising to his hind legs and placing himself strategically in front of his charge.

"Kankrelats usually travel in groups of five," Aelita said studiously. From behind, a trio of Kankrelats blocked their exit.

"You just had to say something, didn't you?" Jade sighed drily, before placing herself behind Aelita, using her body as a shield and sandwiching Aelita between herself and her brother. There was a calm before the storm; the Lyoko atmosphere was tense and apprehensive.

Then, a whirring, that steadily grew louder, filled the air, and the lead Kankrelat shot its first laser at the trio; the battle commenced. The Warriors dodged clumsily, and Jade grabbed Aelita's wrist roughly, throwing her meeker friend behind a tree. "Take cover!" She ordered.

Odd cried out as a laser embedded itself in his leg. Jade slid between his spread legs, shooting a trio of arrows at the attacking monster. The second arrow in the volley found its way into the very center of the monster's Eye, and after stumbling about in pain, it exploded. Odd yanked his sister up by her right paw, and the two back flipped to avoid the retaliating arrows that followed.

Odd landed gracefully from his aerial endeavors, only to be thrown onto his back as another laser slammed into his chest.

"Hey, cool it, would you, Odd? Your mission is to protect Aelita, remember?" Jeremy's pompous voice sounded from above.

"Lay off, four eyes," Jade shouted back, shooting and killing the Kankrelat that had hurt her brother. "Would you like to trade places with us?" Odd rose, wincing, and Jeremy groaned from above, nervous. Odd catapulted his body off of his sister's shoulders, and shot a single arrow at the third monster, and deftly it was destroyed.

"Nice shot!" Jade smiled. Odd turned with his own smile, and opened his mouth to say something when three laser's sliced through Jade's body. His sister fell to her knees, a cry of pain filling the air and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the throb.

"Come on," Aelita cried, tugging on Jade's elbow, dragging her to her feet. "Let's make a run for it!" The trio began their retreat from the battlefield and began heading towards the tower, the path now cleared. Behind them, they could hear the grind of mechanical legs in pursuit.

"Odd?" Jade gasped, as she ran along with the others. When her brother glanced over at her, she gave him a wink. "Take care of Aelita for me." With that, she spun around to face the Kankrelats, and began firing off the remainder of her arrows.

"No, Jade, don't!" Aelita called, skidding to a halt and turning to return to her friend's side. Odd slammed into her and threw her forward with a grunt.

"Get a move on!" he growled, shoving Aelita forward again. "She can handle herself, she knows what she's doing!" The duo continued running, and with a final cry, and a quiet tinkling, the pair knew that Jade had been devirtualized. The pair continued to fly through the sector, and after some time, Odd grew rather impatient.

"Jeremy, I'm starting to get a little lonely out here," Odd sang in a sarcastic sing song voice. Jade, who had just returned to the computer room, was able to smirk through her pants of exhaustion as she looked at the computer monitor in front of Jeremy.

"Really, Odd, can you go three seconds without a crowd to entertain?" she teased, speaking into the mouth piece on Jeremy's headset.

"Oh, beloved sister, I had grown oh so worried about you," Odd sang again. Jade opened her mouth to snap back, but Jeremy hushed her.

"Odd, Yumi is on her way. As for Ulrich…well, let's just say he's fast asleep," Jeremy grinned. Slumped in the corner of the room was Ulrich, unconscious and also unharmed.

"He is? Well, that must be tough, I mean, without his earplugs," Odd mused through the virtual static. Jade tapped Jeremy on the shoulder, getting his attention,

"I'm… I'm gonna go sit with Ulrich, make sure he's okay," Jade stuttered, biting her lip with anxiety. After Jeremy waved her off, she dove to the floor beside Ulrich, checking his pulse, his breathing…everything. She couldn't hide her worry, but to Jeremy, it looked like just a worried, platonic friend.

Yumi was quickly virtualized into the forest sector, and her heels had barely made contact with the sector floor before she was knocked off them. "Get down!" Yumi coughed as the full weight of Odd's body crashed on top of her. The two were behind a tree, and on the other side, the Kankrelats were firing away, hoping to smoke them out.

"Yumi, thank goodness," Aelita sighed, pressing herself nervously against the tree's side, clinging to her cover.

"Aelita, run for it," Yumi commanded before she and Odd darted out from behind the tree. Aelita ran around the other side, heading for the tower, while the two remaining Warriors dealt with the trio. Odd and Yumi rolled and dodged lethally, and just as Yumi killed the first of the three, Odd froze in place. The Kankrelat's shot the feline hero in the chest, and with a gentle tinkling, his virtual molecules fell apart into white wisps as Yumi shouted in frustration.

"Jeremy, we got all the Kankrelats, but it's game over for Odd," she growled, throwing her fan and destroying the last two in one fell swoop. "I'm going to run after Aelita, in case she needs help."

"I don't want to stress you out or anything, but if the scanners are destroyed, you're on a one way trip, Yumi," Jeremy sighed into the headset. Jade's head whipped up from where she sat, cradling Ulrich's head against her shoulder.

"What?" she barked, shocked.

"I don't mind, I'll hurry," she panted, already following the pulsations. "I wouldn't mind a little nap before class." Her joke fell on flat ears; everyone, including Odd who had just came up from the scanner room, was far to worried to laugh at her weak comedy skills.

"Jeremy!" Odd gasped, limping over to Jeremy's master chair and leaning on it for support, "it isn't the scanners she has to worry about. I just had a vision; Yumi falling into the Digital Void."

"Virtualized forever?" Jade squeaked in disbelief.

"I'll… go and help her." Ulrich roused stiffly from his stupor, holding his head as it throbbed in pain. Jade helped him quickly to his feet as the other two boys discouraged him.

"Come on, Ulrich, take a look at yourself! In the shape that you're in, that would be crazy," Jeremy lectured, shaking his head.

"Jade, help me," Ulrich grunted, ignoring the others. Pulling his arm over her supportive shoulders, she began hauling him to the elevator, under the gaze of a disapproving Jeremy and worried Odd. Jeremy began to open his mouth to chastise and berate the two further, but something stopped him.

"Jeremy?" came Aelita's fragile voice through the headset.

"Hold on, Yumi is on her way to help you. Give me a visual." On the screen, so both Odd and Jeremy could see as she did, a Megatank filled the screen, across a hole in the forest floor, with but a sliver of land connecting the island where the Megatank and Tower stood, and the mainland, where Aelita was.

"That's it!" Odd cried, pointing at the screen. "That's right where I saw Yumi fall!" Jeremy wasted no time, and at that moment, began virtualizing Ulrich. Jade ran into the room and began to watch with her two comrades as Aelita dodged around the Megatank's laser attacks. Again and again, the monster fired, and Aelita lucked out each time, being missed by a fraction of an inch. Suddenly, Aelita made a run for the tower, which was still a long ways away.

"No, Aelita, it isn't safe!" Odd shouted angrily at the screen.

"She isn't going to make it," Jade wailed. Aelita could hear the wall of light approach her; the twins were right, she wasn't going to make it, this was it. Aelita squeezed her eyes shut, and braced her impact.

A metallic clang and a shrill of fear and pain filled the air, and as Aelita turned, she saw a terrifying sight; Yumi, using her body as a bullet and slamming into the Megatank's armored side, spinning it on its axis and causing the laser attack to miss Aelita, before the two of them, monster and Warrior, hurdled of the edge of the earth. In the nick of time, Yumi's palm shot out and grabbed the very edge, and as she dangled precariously, a glorious beam of light shot up into the Lyoko sky as the Megatank was completely virtualized.

She could feel her elegant fingers slipping from the edge, and Yumi's heart began to pound in her ears. "Jeremy, I can't hold on any longer," she said, her own voice already sounding clogged and far away, as if she was on another planet, or being held under water.

"Just hold on, Yumi! Aelita's in the tower," Jeremy reassured her, his voice hysterical with worry. To Yumi, his electric voice sounded… quiet, like a glass wall was in between her ear and his words. She knew she wasn't going to make it.

"Yumi, I'm coming!" Ulrich? Ulrich was on Lyoko? No matter. What's done was done.

Her grip slipped, and she fell, fell, fell, fell through time, space, and virtual reality, until her programed molecules touched the Digital Sea, and she fell apart by each atomic bond painlessly. Ulrich's screech of disbelief and pain was suddenly wiped clean as his eyes filled with a blinding white light, and everything he knew fell away.

It was back to the beginning; back to the past, and everything was as it should be. Birds were singing, bulldozers weren't driving themselves, and the principal was droning on about the new equipment the students would be receiving as part of the expansion. However, this time, things _weren't_ as they should be, and Odd, Jade, Ulrich and Yumi weren't listening to the poorly given monologue again.

"I…I never thought that it would become possible. One of us being…" Jeremy stopped unable to finish the sentence. Odd let silent tears fall loosely onto his purple shirt, staring blankly into the distance of the dark computer room, swathed in blue light.

"it's all my fault," Ulrich wailed. "If I had been faster, she'd still be here."

"There's a solution," came Aelita's soft, sad voice over the computer speakers. "And Jeremy knows what it is."

"The materialization program," Jeremy said, eyes wide. His vision suddenly clouded over, and his mouth, which was an "o" in awe, twisted into a bitter frown. "It's operational, but Aelita has to give up her spot here on Earth to Yumi."

Ulrich swallowed hard, and wiped angrily at his eyes as they began to water with hope. "Can you," his voice breaking with sorrow, "can you bring her back here?"

"Yes, but I can only materialize one person," Jeremy sighed. "One and only one." Silence filled the room, save for the computer's clicking and whirring, until Odd began to sob quietly. Jade pulled her brother into a tight, rough hug, trying to bury his face in her neck. Ulrich tore at his hair angrily; it just wasn't fair!

"Then choose Yumi." Everyone froze, staring at the screen, where a sweet, innocent, blameless girl was condemning herself to another minute hour day, week, eternity, in a false world, where she was alone. "She's part of your world already." Jeremy removed his glasses and rub his eyes roughly, hating X.A.N.A and all he did. "It's okay," Aelita chirped, trying to hide her sadness for the sake of her friends. "I can wait a little longer."

"Aelita…no," Odd whimpered, clinging to his sister sadly.

"It's okay, Odd," Aelita reassured with an unconvincing smile.

"Yeah, you'll get to see Aelita here in the real world real soon," Jade continued. Odd shook his head angrily, but buried his head in his sister's neck once more, relinquishing his argument.

"Aelita…I don't know…I mean…" Ulrich stumbled over his words, disgusted with himself. How could he say thank you to her? Thank you, Aelita; although I love you too, I am grateful that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for Yumi, because I love her more. Thank you for agreeing to stay possibly forever on a virtual hell, even when you have the train ticket out of it. Thank you for giving your ticket to Yumi, who agreed to being a Lyoko Warrior, and who went to Lyoko willingly, knowing she might have to sacrifice herself to save you. Thank you, Aelita, for saving the one who was supposed to save you instead.

Aelita shook her head to Ulrich, cutting him off, before nodding to Jeremy. Jade and Odd ran to the scanner room, to await Yumi's return, while Ulrich strolled over to a dark corner, slamming his forehead against the cool, metal wall. Had he been faster, had he woken up sooner, no one would have to be stuck on Lyoko. Yumi would still be here, and Aelita would finally get to taste what it meant to be alive; he felt repulsed with himself.

Yumi collapsed out of the scanner, and Odd and Jade caught her clumsily, cooing and hushing her, trying to keep her calm. "But…but how did you get me back here?" Yumi stuttered, tears of relief springing to her eyes. The twins looked at one another, and Jade was the first to look away. Odd finally sighed, and looked down at his Japanese friend, still resting in their arms.

"Aelita said to use the materialization program for you," he finally whispered. Yumi's eyes narrowed with confusion, then widened with grief. She collapsed to the floor, wailing in guilt, in pain, in sorrow, to her friend still trapped in her technological prison. As Odd and Jade cradled her, stroking her hair, telling her it was okay, she felt, deep down, that it really wasn't; Aelita was finally coming to Earth, and Yumi had robbed her of it.

Above, Jeremy and Aelita whispered sadly to each other over the monitor; Ulrich was already walking slowly back to school, alone. He couldn't bear to stand where Aelita could see him, maybe judge him, hate him, but he also couldn't see Yumi yet; he'd let her down, and if he'd just been quicker, both girls would be home, safe and sound.

"I'm happy, but sad at the same time," Jeremy sighed, his cheek in his palm as he stared at his pink haired friend on the screen.

"At least you know the program works," Aelita offered, ever trying to brighten Jeremy's day. "You just have to set it back up again."

"Yeah, nothing to it," Jeremy scoffed in frustration.

"I believe in you, Jeremy," Aelita whispered softly to him across the digital void. Despite his sadness, Jeremy felt a flutter of those nuisance butterflies once more in his stomach. "I know you will get me there, someday." Jeremy smiled at her, and she at him, before she disconnected, the screen turning black, signaling that she could no longer hear him.

"For you, Aelita," he said, removing his headset, "I'll never stop trying." He rode his scooter slowly through the sewers, and even though he could hear the skateboards' wheels gaining on him, he didn't glance up to see who it was. Ulrich, who had circled back to give a sheepish greeting to Yumi, patted Jeremy on the back while Jeremy smiled welcomingly at Yumi, letting her know he didn't begrudge her. When he was offered candy by Odd, Yumi gave his shoulder a supportive squeeze.

"Come on, Jeremy, have some, candy can heal anything," she smiled, rubbing his back. "Even a broken heart."

"If you say so," Jeremy sighed weakly, before popping a few pieces in his mouth. The five friends walked slowly through the sewer, leaning on one another. Sure, the candy helped eased the pain, but all five of the Lyoko Warriors could feel the bruising of their hearts.


	4. Swarming Attack

Jeremy yawned lazily into his palm, the heat of the late fall sun causing the small group to become drowsy. Odd stifled his own yawn in response as Jade's eyes wandered the campus around them coolly.

"Hey, you look really wiped out," Yumi said, appraising the bags under Jeremy's eyes. "What did you do last night?"

"I worked on a little program, an advanced research program of sorts," Jeremy responded,, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's a browser which I'm trying to make to help Aelita look for more info on materialization in the Lyoko towers."

"Just imagine all the things she's going to learn when she gets here," Jade sighed as a breeze caressed her face sweetly, reminding her of all the things her virtual friend had yet to experience.

"She's gonna be amazed," Odd nodded, agreeing with his sister.

"I think about it all the time," Jeremy smiled shyly, trying to hide his obvious blush. "I can't wait for that day to come." Jade snickered with a raised eyebrow, causing Jeremy to look at the ground in embarrassment. "Y-yeah…It's…It's going to be great," he finished weakly. The sound of approaching footsteps caused the group to turn their attention from Jeremy to Ulrich, who was walking towards them slowly. Jade struggled to suppress the butterflies that wiggled in her stomach as he got closer.

"Hi, Ulrich," Yumi greeted with a smile.

"Hello," Ulrich replied just as the bell rang. Yumi's brow furrowed; why wasn't he making eye contact with anyone?

"Okay, guys, it's time for us to work up a sweat," Odd said, waving to the half of his group that didn't share his gym class. "So long!" Odd, Jade, and Jeremy began heading to the gymnasium, and Yumi turned to head to her math class when she felt a tug at her elbow.

"Yumi?" Ulrich asked nervously as she turned around, "I….um…I, uh…are you okay?" Yumi tilted her head in confusion.

"Well, yeah, why are you asking?" she replied curiously.

"I, uh, just…just asked," he muttered quietly. "See you later." With that, Stern turned and headed off in the opposite direction to his own class. The guys and Jade quickly changed into their physical education clothes and jogged out onto the soccer field, where the rest of their class was already warming up and beginning to play.

After they'd stretched their muscles, they took their positions. Jeremy nervously stood in front of the goalie as Jade took possession of the ball, with Odd blocking her. The twins duked it out for a few minutes, wrestling for the upper hand while Jeremy waited tensely. Finally, barely maneuvering around her brother, Jade got an open shot at the goal. Pulling her foot back, she slammed it towards the goalie. Jeremy squeaked in fear just before impact; the force of the shot knocked Jeremy back into the netting to the goal.

Off on the sideline, Ulrich was laying on his back, staring at the sky, his eyes filled with confusion as he thought back to several minutes before, prior to when he had joined the group before class.

 _Ulrich grabbed the slip of paper from under the edge of his door and opened it, holding it above him so he could read it as he lay in bed. It was a note, and scrawled in hurried letters, it read: "Ulrich, I'm not sure how to tell you this, so I'm writing it. I've always admired you, and I've been wanting to tell you for ages, but I didn't have the nerve. Also, I wasn't 100% sure, but now I am. I love you. Sincerely, Yumi." He had laid in bed, stunned, and couldn't believe it. Had she really—_

"Ulrich, watch out!" cried Jade. As Ulrich came out of his reverie, he saw the swirling tornado of a speeding soccer ball, before it pegged him square in the face and knocked him out. Ulrich struggled with the dark, and when he came to, Jeremy, Jade, Odd, and Jim all stood over him, with worry written on their expressive faces. After assuring his friends he didn't need to visit the infirmary, and getting a brief lecture from Jim on keeping his eye on the ball, the three boys heading to the men's locker room to dress out.

"Ah, how could I let that happen?" Ulrich groaned, placing his face in his palms, embarrassed.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Ulrich, but your playing was a little weird," Jeremy said, quickly swapping out his sweaty T shirt for his blue sweater.

"You can say that again!" Odd laughed insensitively. "Why, even Jeremy was playing better than you today."

"My mind wasn't on the game," Ulrich grumbled, refusing to take the bait his best friend had laid out for him. "Lay off." He began heading for the door, not wanting to be around his pals, when a sudden weight pressed against him, causing him to stumble, unbalanced.

"No way!" Odd grunted, trying not to be shaken off by Ulrich's attempts to remove him from his back. "You can leave as soon as you tell us what's wrong." There was a moment of silence, as Ulrich began to mull the idea of sharing his thoughts with his friends.

"It's.. just… well… I got this letter from a girl," he spluttered, "you know, the kind of letter you send when..well…" Odd mind zipped to his sister; he was the only one who knew that Jade had romantic notions of his best friend. "The problem is, I'm not sure what I feel," Ulrich continued. "I can't even manage to talk to her."

"And can you tell us who the lucky lady is?" Jeremy inquired, tugging his sneakers back onto his feet.

"Are you kidding me? I'm not telling anyone, I don't want this getting around. Don't tell anyone, got it?" Ulrich snapped at his friend's heatedly. As he stalked out of the locker room, Jeremy and Odd stared at his back, confused. The pair walked together to the cafeteria and began trying to guess who the female was that had written Ulrich the note.

"I bet it's Emily," Jeremy finally nodded confidently. "She's the kind of girl that would totally flip for him."

"Oh yeah?" Yumi's voice said from behind the two young men.

"And who is it that is being flipped over?" Came Jade's voice. The boy's turned around tensely, their eyes wide with panic.

"It's Jim," Odd finally splurged; he didn't want to tell Jade that he thought she wrote Ulrich the letter, not until he was sure, and he had promised Ulrich he wouldn't tell anyone, even Yumi. "Emily is crazy about Jim."

"Jim? You're kidding? Well, they do say that love is blind," Yumi laughed. Jeremy suddenly choked on his water, and Odd stifled a laugh behind a palm. Directly behind Yumi, Jim cleared his throat angily.

"Oh, Jim! I, uh…well…I'm sorry," Yumi mumbled weakly. Jim stalked away, and Jade laughed quietly, taking the seat beside her brother.

"Where's Ulrich at?" She asked the boys. Usually, he was eating lunch with them at this time.

"Not sure," Jeremy said quickly before taking a bite from his sandwich.

At that current moment, Ulrich sat in the park in solitude, savoring each delicate stroke of every letter on the note, which he was reading again. He was alone, save for Kiwi, who he had decided to let out of the dorm room, since he was outside anyway. He reread the letter, a hopeful grin on his face. When Kiwi began barking, it sounded far off, like a wall was in between him and the rest of the world. Kiwiw suddenly flung himself onto Ulrich's lap, and the warm haze that had enraptured the young athlete shattered.

"Kiwi, who did that to you?" he asked the canine who was crying on his legs. There, swollen and bright, three huge welts were throbbing on the small dog's flank. A vicious buzzing filled the air, a thousand angry whispers vying for attention. Ulrich screamed in horror as a black cloud of hornets filled the air above him. Ulrich jumped to his feet and began to run, urging Kiwi to run faster than he could and save himself. Kiwi disappeared into the distance, and Ulrich followed desperately. Slowly, the malicious hum faded, and as Ulrich began to outrun the swarm, he felt relief.

As he stumbled into the school courtyard, a small, beige bundle convulsed on the ground. Ulrich scooped up Kiwi's spasming body and snuck into his dorm room before calling his two male friends in panic. When Odd and Jeremy arrived, Odd felt fear boiling in his throat.

"He doesn't look well at all," Odd whimpered, trying to stroke his furry friend gently enough so as not to cause pain. "Do you think it's serious?"

"Don't worry, Odd," Jeremy reassured confidently. "He'll be back on his feet in no time. I mean, back on his paws." A light knock on the door called the trio's attention to the two girls who walked in. Jade and Yumi had scarfed down the remainder of their lunch before dashing to the nearby pet supply store for anti-venom.

Odd stroked Kiwi's pointed face gently as the dog whimpered in pain as Jade wrapped the small dog's welts with the healing slaves and medicine she and Yumi had purchased at the store. "Hey, Yumi?" Ulrich whispered, not wanting to draw the other's attention. "Come over here, please, I wanna tell you something." He pulled Yumi to the other side of the room, away from the other three, who were all focused on Kiwi.

"I do too," Yumi whispered with a giggle. "Rumor has it that Emily is in love with Jim."

"Odd told me all about it, weird, huh?" Ulrich glared over at his friend's back, and Odd smiled sheepishly back at his friend, a silent apology; he'd had to think on his toes, hadn't he? "I've got class anyway, see ya." Yumi strode out the door, and Jade excused herself momentarily, needing to use the rest room.

"What's that all about?" Ulrich finally sighed in irritation.

"I don't know," Odd blushed over the sound of Jeremy's chuckle. Irritated with his friend's dodgy response, Ulrich went to the principal's office and reported that he alone had been attacked by a buzzing swarm, hoping to still hide Kiwi's presence, but also warn the head honcho to any possible dangerous hive or other infestation. Several hours later, the exterminator arrived on campus, and not many people thought much of it. However, when shouts of pain sounded off from the forest, the public's attention was certainly captured. The swarm of hornets pierced the exterminator repeatedly, and once he was subdued, began to flit around to the students.

"Try and attract them to us," Ulrich shouted to Jeremy and Odd, whom he was walking to the cafeteria with. "Let's go!" The three ran separate ways, and the black cloud of insects dissected to follow each. After some time, Jeremy and Odd each outran their own little swarm of hornets, and circled back for the exterminator, who laid in pain, covered in welts, in the school courtyard. They hauled the swollen man inside, and for a few moments, their ears filled with the incessant sound of angry hornets trying to sneak in through some fallacy in the windows, before they flew off.

"We've got to get him to the infirmary," Jeremy finally huffed.

"What about _those_ guys?" Odd gasped, nervously checking the windows, trying to see if the hoard was still in sight.

"Ulrich will take care of them," Jeremy said, already hauling the unconscious man's weight over one shoulder.

Ulrich's tennis shoes pounded the ground, sending him flying forward at a reckless speed. He dodged around a corner, and nearly slipped from exhaustion. This breakneck pace was unsustainable. Ulrich's lungs were burning for reprieve, and he felt his knees begin to buckle with each heavy step.

"Hey! Over here!" Ulrich's head snapped to the left at the sound of someone's voice.

"Jade, no, let me- " A hand clamped over his mouth and yanked him to the side roughly, throwing his back against the cold brick wall of a campus building. Yumi signaled for Ulrich to stay quiet. The buzzing grew louder and louder until Ulrich's pursuers zipped past them and after Odd's sister. She began running in the opposite direction, leading the cloud of stingers away from the pair. Seeing that the coast was clear, Yumi began to the lead way to the nearest doors, the science bulding, but Ulrich could hardly walk, and wobbled unsurely on his weakened legs. Yumi carefully supported his weight, and they were nearly to the doors when Yumi heard the buzzing again.

Just in the nick of time, Yumi threw herself and Ulrich through the door, and she kicked it viciously shut, preventing the swarm of bees from following. Yumi breathed heavily, holding her weight above Ulrich, where they had fallen after she closed the door.

"Yumi…you're hurt," Ulrich stated, staring at her bloody palm. Yumi glanced at the wound before shaking her head and smiling.

"It's nothing serious Ulrich, just a scratch," she grinned, glad that she and Jade had managed to keep him safe. Ulrich began to blush, his feelings swelling inside of him, and although Yumi saw the rise in heat to his face, she mistook it as just evidence of the physical exertion he had made to outrun the wasps.

"Come on," Yumi said, climbing off of her friend and helping him carefully to unsteady feet. "We'd better see what the others are up too, make sure their okay." The two quickly checked about, then quickly crossed the campus courtyard before entering the dormitories, where the infirmary was located on the ground floor.

"Well," Jeremy said as Ulrich and Yumi walked in, "the exterminator was lucky. One more sting, and…" he stopped, shaking his head, not wanting to finish the thought.

"Yeah, but he's still not in great shape," Jade sighed, gnawing her lip nervously. Her brother grabbed her hand supportively, and Ulrich bent and checked his ankle; after a few weeks of knowing the twins, Jade had given Jeremy and himself Epi-Pens; she was allergic to bee stings, and although she and Odd carried their own pens as well, she felt better knowing that the guys had them too.

"The principal sent for help," Odd cooed encouragingly, stroking his sister's hair; she had really put herself out there to try and protect Ulrich, and he hoped it hadn't gone unnoticed.

"They are getting rid of the nest," Jeremy nodded, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what you guys think, but I think-"

"You think it's X.A.N.A," Ulrich interrupted. "Come on, cut it out, hornet's nest have always been around, and accidents happen all the time."

"You're right," Yumi said, rubbing her injured hand. "But these hornets were after us, nobody else."

"I say we check it out," Jade mumbled, staring at the floor, her mind lost to the possibilities.

"I'll try and contact Aelita," Jeremy said, nodding in agreement.

"Well," Yumi sighed, rubbing her neck, "I'm heading back to class, but keep me posted." She strolled out of the infirmary waiting area, leaving the others to think critically.

"Do you realize the damage these bugs can cause?" Odd asked the remaining other three. "There could be thousands of them!"

"If X.A.N.A is in on this attack, we could have a very serious problem," Jade grunted, suppressing a nervous shiver. Odd and Jeremy nodded, mumbling agreements, but Ulrich's back was to the group, staring after the door that Yumi had disappeared through.

"Um, Ulrich, you there?" Jeremy asked, tapping his friend's shoulder.

"Oh, yes, I mean- no! Or, well, I don't know," he spluttered, about facing and shaking his head to clear it. There was a moment of silence, before Jeremy smirked.

"Does this have anything to do with that secret admirer, hmm, Ulrich?" Jeremy asked.

"A what?" Jade asked, feeling her stomach drop.

"Ulrich got a note from a secret admirer today," Jeremy said offhand, oblivious to Jade's attraction to Ulrich. Odd reach out to comfort his sister, when he felt a rather insistent tap on his shoulder.

"What's all this about me being in love with Jim?" Emily demanded, her hands on her narrow hips. Jeremy and Ulrich began to snicker behind their hands, but Jade could find little joy in the situation, her feelings for Ulrich strangling her. Odd struggled to find a response, but was quickly slapped across the face. "Start that rumor again, and even your dog won't recognize you!" she shouted, stomping away to the hoots and laughter of Odd's friends.

The friends went their separate ways; Jeremy to is room to continue working on Aelita's materialization program, Ulrich to the gym to work on his martial arts, and Odd and Jade headed off to the cafeteria. The pair ate slowly, a pregnant silence between them. "So Ulrich got a note from a secret admirer, huh?" Jade finally said glumly, pouring her spoonful of soup back into the bowl sullenly.

"Yeah…" Odd sighed, swallowing a bite of his sandwich with effort. "At first, I thought it might've been you, but…well, your reaction to the news at the infirmary tells me otherwise." Jade shoved back her chair in frustration, hating that she had brought up the subject.

"Come on, I'm done eating," she grunted, grabbing her tray ruefully and walking away. With a sigh of frustration, her twin brother followed, and after the two had poured their scraps into the waste bin, they tromped outside and down the steps that led up to the cafeteria doors. At that moment, Jade's phone chimed with an obnoxiously happy tune, making her feel even more upset. She flipped it open, and held the earpiece to the side of her head.

"Alert!" Jeremy's high voice rang in her ear. "X.A.N.A's activated a tower, and Aelita's trying to find it guys."

"Alright, we'll be at the factory soon," Jade said before snapping her phone shut. "Come on, Aelita needs us on Lyoko. Call Yumi and Ulrich, let them know."

"Why don't you do it, you've already got your phone out," Odd complained before he could stop himself. As he looked at how her eyes tightened and she glared at the ground, he immediately felt guilty.

"I don't want to talk to either of them right now," she grumbled. "Ya' know, woman's intuition." With that, she tore away, heading for the beginning tree line that marked the edge of the forest. As the two came into view of the man hole, they saw it slide shut. Jade ran a little faster and shouted down, "Wait for us!" She scrambled down the ladder and landed next to Jeremy hastily. Odd climbed down a little more carefully, and finally said a curt goodbye and hung up the phone he was speaking into.

"The other two are on their way," Odd nodded. The trio hopped on their scooter and skateboards and pushed their way through the sewers their rubber tires quickly transporting them to the factory's underground.

A faint, negligible buzzing filled Jeremy's ears, and at first, he thought it was radio waves, or just some debris flowing mindlessly through the sewer water to his right, but when he rounded the final corner to the ladder that would lead them up onto the bridge in front of the factory, he realized he was wrong.

"Ahh!" Odd shouted, skidding to a reckless hault and almost smashing into Jeremy's stalled back. Jade shoved her boot to the pavement in a desperate foot brake, and all three shuddered with horror. Before them, the ladder and surrounding area was swathed with hornet nests, some as large as their faces.

"Wow, nice going, X.A.N.A," Jeremy hissed in irritation.

"Any suggestions would be very welcome," Odd whispered, more mindful of his voice's volume. The buzzing intensified, and as the insects began to mass above the three Lyoko Warrior's heads, Jeremy whimpered meekly.

"Uhh, get out of here as fast as we can?" Jade offered, her eyes narrowed. The two boys with her nodded, and the three of them about faced and began fleeing. The swarm quickly took them over and surrounded them. The three stood back to back, trying to face their shifting enemy from all sides.

"Any more ideas?" Odd moaned, swatting at one of the hornets that tried to land on his arm. Jeremy's eyes darted about, before finally landing on the sewer water.

"Jump!" he commanded. He launched himself into the waste, and grabbed Odd's wrist, dragging him in with him. Jeremy's nose and mouth filled with a retching combination of things he tried not to think about, and while he was under water, a dulled ringing filled his ears. As he finally broke the surface, sputtering, the dull ringing sharpened into an ear splitting shriek.

"Jade!" Odd shouted. Jeremy opened his eyes to find Odd's sister curled up on the ground, screeching and trembling. Odd wrapped his hand around her ankle and dragged her into the sewage. He swatted hatefully at the buzzing insects about them, but they quickly flew off.

"Insects are very sensitive to smells," Jeremy explained. Odd ignored him; he hauled his sister back onto the concrete with a cry, and scrambled beside her. He swore heatedly under his breath as he began tugging at her clothes and examining her; the majority of her body was swelling with angry welts from where she was stung. Jeremy wiped his glasses clear and climbed gingerly from the grey sludge. When he finally could see better, his stomach dropped. On her arm alone, he quickly counted sixteen stings.

Odd tore at his purple jeans and yanked them high about his knee and pulled down his sock to reveal a shiny tubule. He snatched it quickly, tore off the cap, and gingerly pulled out the Epi Pen he always carried on him. Jeremy lifted Jade's shirt, and she moaned in pain as the hem scraped against her puckered skin. When Jeremy finally moved Jade's shirt high enough that her green bra was in plain view, Odd shoved the long, savage needle into her chest.

Jade's lungs heaved as she finally took a desperate breath, and some of the tension left her brow as the medicine began to work through her veins. "Epi Pens aren't a cure, Odd, they're a treatment. Although she is doing a little better now, she will worsen again," Jeremy sighed, pulling down his friend's shirt again and returning her to a more modest state.

"Well hurry up," Odd suddenly grunted, jumping to his feet and trying to get his sister's arm around his shoulder. "We've got to take her to the hospital!"

"No, Odd," Jeremy said quietly. Odd rounded on him, his mouth a twisted, angry snarl, but Jeremy continued. "The time it would take to walk or carry her to the hospital could be disastrous! The best we can do is push on and deactivate the tower, and launch a return to the past." Silence.

"Then hurry up, Einstein," Odd grunted, brushing sticky hair off of his sister's sweat drenched face. Jeremy nodded, and muttered about getting something from his room to help get them past the nests, but Odd was already tuning him out; every sense, every nerve ending, was focused on watching the shallow rise and fall, rise and fall, of his sister's chest.

Loud, pounding footsteps approached, but Della Robbia didn't even bother to look up. "Good God, what happened?" Yumi panted, her wide gaze on Jade's limp form on the floor.

"Hornets got her," Odd replied curtly.

"Is… is she alright?" Ulrich whispered.

"Does she look alright?" Odd snapped sarcastically. Yumi tugged on Ulrich's sleeve, and they nervously walked a ways away, giving the twins some room. Ulrich refused to meet Yumi's gaze, and she finally sighed in irritation.

"Look, I think we should talk," she whispered, trying to keep her voice down, so the Della Robbia twins wouldn't be disturbed.

"I know what you're going to tell me," Ulrich snapped. "And I don't want to hear it." Ulrich's louder voice bounced around the echoing tunnel, and Odd shot his best friend a heated glare as he covered his sister's ears tenderly, where he cradled her head in his lap. Although Ulrich knew he should be respectful and keep his voice down, he glared back at Odd with just as much irritation; on their way over to the sewers, Ulrich and Yumi had ran into Sissy and her goonies. Turned out that the love letter signed with Yumi's name had been a sick prank Sissy had played on the pair of them. His pride, ego, and emotions were bruised…how was he supposed to handle it?

"Ulrich, this is all on account of Sissy!" Yumi hissed, although she kept her voice low.

"Don't you think I know that!" Ulrich shouted. His screech vibrated around them, and Odd tensed up, his eyes darting about, trying to see if the sudden noise had caused the hornets to swarm again. Jade stirred, her swollen eyelids barely able to open as she regained consciousness. "But because of her, I'm confused," Ulrich continued. "Every time I see you, I don't know what to think. So just leave me alone, okay?" Ulrich stomped a few feet away, and Yumi's head fell, her black hair curtaining her distraught expression.

Footsteps from around the corner sounded, and Jeremy came jogging about, a strange contraption in his hands. "What's that?" Ulrich asked, eager to move on from the prior conversation.

"It's our way to the factory," Jeremy said smugly, innocent of the tense situation he just walked in on. Ulrich helped throw Jade's other arm over his shoulder, and between him and Ulrich, they half walked, half dragged the thin girl along the way. Jade's stomach was knotted with anxiety; she had romantic notions about Ulrich, but she put her own needs and wants below those of her friends, and seeing Yumi and Ulrich fight only added to the distress she was already under from the stings.

The buzzing grew louder until the group of five once again stood before the massive hives that blocked the ladder to the bridge above them. Jeremy placed the strange object he had been carrying on the floor and extracted a small remote control from his pocket. The device whirred on, and rolled forward directly below the humongous colonies.

Miraculously, after a few moments, the bees shrank away from the device, opening the ladder for use. They gathered angrily in the far corner of the sewer, wanting to attack their prey, but unable to. "Pretty clever, huh?" Jeremy sniffed, feeling rather proud. "This thing generates ultra sounds at about 30,000 hertz. Like all insects, hornets are incapable of receiving-"

"I don't have time for this," Odd snapped, shoving Jeremy roughly to the side as he tenderly led his sister to the cleared ladder.

"Odd," Jade whispered carefully, so the others wouldn't hear, "don't-"

"Quiet, Jade," Odd ordered, loud enough for the others to hear. "Don't worry about anything but climbing." Jade's swollen joints screamed in protest as she began her excruciating ascent, her brother climbing up with one hand awkwardly directly behind her, steadying her with the other. The others followed, the last to scale the rungs being Jeremy, who left the device beeping, so the hornets didn't have a chance to swarm them as they clamored closer and closer to the surface. As Jeremy replaced the man hole over the exit from the sewers, he had a hard time crushing his guilt; he knew Jade was sick, and he felt guilty that he had allowed himself to carry on as he did.

They hobbled to the factory as quickly as possible, and once Jeremy hopped into his master chair, Odd leaned his sister carefully against the control room wall, the pale blue light bathing her in a sickly aura. "Don't worry Jade," Odd whispered as he stood up slowly. "We'll fix you up." With that, he dashed and joined Yumi and Ulrich in the elevator. As the three Lyoko Warriors descended, a quiet unease settled; X.A.N.A had always tried to hurt the people the Warriors knew, but this was the closest to home he'd ever struck.

The three heroes walked apprehensively into the scanners, nervous for the ill feelings soon to come. "No time to lose," came Jeremy's voice from above. "To the forest sector!" The doors slid shut tightly in front of Yumi's face, and as a warm wind began to blow up from below her feet as she lifted her chin. "Transfer Ulrich. Transfer Odd. Transfer Yumi. Scanner…." His voice faded into the background as the light outside her eye lids intensified to a blinding intensity. As her atoms virtualized and fragmented, Yumi felt her body split and divide, twisting and churning in a nauseating way. Her breath grew shallow as her body slowly materialized, and suddenly her lungs weren't inhaling oxygen, her bonds regrouped, and she landed gracefully onto the forest sector floor.

"Aelita, can you hear me? Aelita, answer me!" Above, Jeremy's voice rose an octave as he began to panic. "Oh no, this cannot be happening!" Yumi glanced around, finding Ulrich and Odd to her left, crouched beside her. "Do any of you see her?"

'No," Yumi replied, shaking her head. "Not yet."

"Guys…you better hurry," Jeremy suddenly stuttered from above. "Jade's…Jade's not doing well." Wordlessly, Odd dashed off in the direction he could fell the pulsations from, leaving the other two Lyoko Warriors tripping to keep up.

Jeremy removed his headset and dashed across the room, kneeling beside her head. Jade's throat constricted and she choked, coughing for air. "Jade! Jade, hold on!" Jeremy lifted her shirt and yanked the Epi Pen he had from his own sock. He hissed in disgust; the puncture from the previous area was bruising, turning purple and yellow around the small hole. "I'm sorry," Jeremy whispered before shoving another injection of adrenaline into her chest.

She gasped in pain, and Jeremy gently removed the needle before pulling her shirt down kindly. He pulled her head into his lap, and her chest heaved heavily as she finally got to breathe. "Thank you," she croaked. Jeremy nodded and opened his mouth to respond but shut it, listening quietly.

"Jeremy! Jeremy, what are you doing?" a tiny voice, barely audible, squeaked from Jeremy's headset where it sat on the master keyboard across the room. Jeremy carefully lifted Jade from the floor and helped her across the room. The two, thin kids hopped into the chair together, and as Jeremy placed his earpiece back around his lobe, Yumi's voice became suddenly much louder. "Jeremy, how about better communication next time, yeah?" Yumi shouted in anger. "Would've been nice to know three Hornets had been coming!"

"Sorry guys," Jeremy said, readjusting the earpiece to fit more comfortably in his ear canal. "Jade needed a second shot…" Jeremy trailed off as he turned to look at his friend in the seat with him. Jade smiled weakly, and nodded to reassure her lensed friend.

"Leave him alone," Odd hissed, rolling out of the way of a volley of lasers. He began dashing towards one of the three remaining Hornets, his frustration and worry about his sister blurring his vision. The Hornet he opposed sprayed acid directly on the ground before Odd's boots. With a cry of surprise, Odd tried to jump over the sudden bubbly pool, but it was too late. He splashed through the burning liquid, and felt the remainder of his life points being sapped away. As his molecules fragmented and devirtualized, Odd shot one final Arrow that punched through the center of the Eye on the Hornet. It exploded just as Odd was completely devirtualized, destroying the first of the three monsters.

Odd stumbled out of the scanner, nauseous and feeling ill, a palm slapping to his forehead as he gasped for air. After a few seconds, he dashed to the elevator, and rose to the computer room. The moment the huge, industrial doors parted, Odd squeezed through and ran to the command chair. "Jade! Jade, are you alright?" Jade nodded weakly, and gave her brother an unconvincing smile. With a growl of irritation, Odd ripped Jeremy's headpiece off, causing the programmer to shout in protest, and screamed into the receiver, "Hurry up! Jade can't last much longer!' He threw the headpiece back at Jeremy and slowly helped his sister to the floor, where he cradled her head carefully in his lap. Far off, in the back of his mind, he could hear Jeremy and the other Warriors communicating their attacks and movements, but to Odd, it seemed wholly irrelevant. The only thing that matter was that each breath his sister took was shallower and weaker than the one before it.

"Jeremy! I need her third Pen!" Odd sobbed, trying to coax his sister back to him as her eyes fell shut.

"Odd, I already gave her mine, and Ulrich was materialized with his," Jeremy said quietly, trying to hide the growing lump of panic in his voice.

"Well, what are we supposed to do!" Odd shouted back, biting his lip with fear.

"It's up to Ulrich, Aelita, and Yumi to deactivate the tower in time, or else…." He stopped, not wanting to vocalize the impending truth. Odd bent down his body and whispered all the comfort he could into his sister's ear, begging her to stay with him, while Jeremy somberly turned back to his computer screens; the others were Jade's final hope. At some point, Yumi was beside Odd, stroking Jade's hair caringly; Odd didn't remember hearing her being devirtualized, but he hardly cared; all that mattered was that Jade's breaths were shallow gasps.

They stopped. Jade's breaths stopped. "Jade?" Odd whispered. Jade didn't move or respond. "Jade? Jade! Jade, wake up! Jade, hold on, don't let go! Wake up! Jade!" Odd's world faded to black, everything dulling and growing meaningless. His black world suddenly lightened to grey, and from grey to white, a blinding, burning, renewing white light.

They all stood outside in the courtyard of Kadic Academy, the warm fall sunshine heating Odd's face. Odd looked about frantically, and his eyes finally landed on the face he was searching for. "Jade!" Odd wrapped his sister in a huge bear hug, a few tears sneaking down his cheek. "I thought I'd lost you!" Jeremy and Yumi piled on, and to a stifling group hug. Jade grew self conscious as several passing classmates gave the sudden display of affection judgemental looks.

"Okay, okay, I'm fine! I get it, everyone's glad I'm okay, and yeah, I love you all too! Now get off!" The others let go chuckling, and finally Yumi's eyes brightened.

"Come on, we've all got one more thing to attend too!" The four dashed into the dorms, and as they neared the blind corner that led to Ulrich and Odd's door they quietened and listened. Footsteps were heard approaching their door, and suddenly the click of the door's latch coming free and whipping open sounded.

"Uhhhh, uh, hi!" Sissy stuttered, caught red handed as she jumped to her feet, trying to hide the note she had been trying to slip under the door secretly. The four Lyoko Warriors sneaked behind Sissy, all smirking at her sudden embarrassment. "I was, uh, just passing by, and uh…" Sissy's face heated with a incriminating blush as she lost her train of thought in her bluster.

Ulrich snatched the note from her hand, and she gasped in fear. "Well, what do you know?" Ulrich drawled confidently, reading the message he had already read countless times over. "Let's see now…"

"What?" Jade gasped, suddenly bouncing around and looking over Ulrich's shoulder theatrically. Ulrich indulgently tilted the letter so Jade could read it and react more dramatically. "A letter signed by Yumi? Written by Sissy?" Jade giggled.

"Well, this is a pretty embarrassing situation," Yumi yawned, leaning coolly against the wall, raising her eyebrows at the principal's daughter. Sissy turned around suddenly, seeing Jeremy and Odd snickering behind her.

"This, uh, wasn't the right door," Sissy stuttered, snatching the letter back as the extent of her embarrassment dawned on her.

"You could say that again," Odd snorted, shaking his head in disgust.

"You know, Sissy," Jeremy called out as she stomped away, "if you need directions to Herb's or Nicolas' rooms, I'd be more than happy to help you find them!" Sissy dashed away, covering her face with her hands in embarrassment as the group's laughter echoed down the halls. Ulrich turned to Jade with a much softer, less cruel smile and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm glad that you're okay," he sighed. Jade wrapped her friend in a hug, and as the other's joined in a second, less public group hug, Jade felt her soul quiet and calm, as she relaxed in the arms of the people she loved most.


	5. Killer Music

"I _will not_ kill him, I _will not_ kill him, I _will not_ kill him," Ulrich muttered to himself over and over again quietly. It was eleven thirty at night on a Monday evening, and the chemistry test he had tomorrow was bright and early the next day. He stared at his open textbook, trying to read the first sentence for the sixth time, unsuccessfully. Ulrich was distracted because his obnoxious roommate was blasting music so loud on his headphones that Ulrich could hear it from across the room. "Odd, if you don't mind, I'm trying to study!" Ulrich snapped, turning around in his seat at his desk to see Odd moving about sporadically in what one could only assume was supposed to be dancing.

Odd raised his eyebrows in defiance and began to sing loudly along to the tune defiantly. With a groan of frustration, Ulrich shuffled back around, readjusted his desk lamp so its light was shining across the page more directly, and tried to read the first line once more. "Cut that out!" Ulrich snapped, massaging his temples and trying to not give Odd the satisfaction of knowing he was successfully distracting him further. "You'll wake up the neighbors!"

"Give it up already," Odd laughed, pulling his headphones off from his head. The music was so incredibly loud, that from across the room, Ulrich could hear the music booming from the headset. "No matter how hard you try to study, you're gonna' get a zero, so why not listen to this new song I just downloaded instead?" He held his headphones out to Ulrich, who glared at them before trying to smack them to the floor. Odd pulled them away just in time, replacing them on his head. "Come on, it's the newest, hottest song, and better yet, a mystery! No one knows who made it! It's a musical revolution, it's called _Glad When Your Bad,_ " Odd shouted in the tiny dorm room, unable to hear the volume of his voice over the beats in his ears. He wiggled around the room, thinking himself quite the talented dancer.

"You want a revolution?" Ulrich seethed back, packing his backpack. Odd danced around, unable to hear his roommate over his music. "You are so selfish, and you never think of anyone but yourself!" Ulrich slammed out of the room, his textbook and notes slung over his back.

"Hey, where are you going?" Odd called to the closed door as he removed his headphones. Although Odd had shouted, in the ringing of his ears, he could hardly hear his own words. He stared at the closed door, feeling suddenly lonely at the absence of his friend. Odd scrambled to the foot of his bed, began petting his sleeping dog, and replaced his headphones over his ears, willing the throbbing bass to pound away his solitude.

Ulrich knocked on Jeremy's door, still fuming. When Jeremy opened the door, bleary eyed, he blinked in confusion at the raw anger on Ulrich's face. "Odd and his stupid music are driving me nuts," Ulrich immediately explained. "I have to study for an exam, is it okay if I study in your room?"  
"Sure," Jeremy nodded. "I could even give you some help if you want." With that, Jeremy led the way into his room, closing the door behind Ulrich. They studied together for what felt like hours, and when Jeremy was shaking Ulrich awake the following morning, Ulrich couldn't even remember going to sleep.

"Too…tired…" Ulrich sighed, slapping away Jeremy's jostling hand and flipping over, pulling the blankets over his head.

"Do I have to remind you?" Jeremy chuckled, standing and throwing his blue sweater over his bare chest. "You have a test this morning." He hopped around, trying to pull his pants up and over his knobby knees.

"I didn't get a lot of sleep," Ulrich yawned in exhaustion from his small nest on the floor.

"Yeah?" Jeremy asked as he slipped on his belt absentmindedly. "How come?"

"I'll tell you how come," Ulrich snickered as he stood up. "Oh, Aelita," he moaned, mockingly imitating Jeremy's flute like voice. "Oh, Aelita, Aelita! You're in all my dreams, oh, Aelita!" Jeremy stiffened in embarrassment, now fully awake and completely red in the face.

"SHHHHHH!" Jeremy hissed, covering Ulrich's mouth. "She might hear you!" On Jeremy's desk sat his desktop, which always had an open window that Aelita could choose to connect to via the Lyoko Tower's interface.

"Between you and Odd," Ulrich grinned, "I can't study or sleep!"

"Hey," Jeremy said meekly, scuffing his shoe on the carpet as he stared at the floor, "you're not gonna'…ya know… tell anybody, huh?"

"Yeesh, I promise, Romeo," Ulrich giggled. Frankly, he didn't _have_ to tell anybody. Everyone in their group was well aware of how infatuated Belpois was with their digital charge. "Let's go get breakfast, but not with Odd." Jeremy opened his mouth to ask 'why not' when Ulrich plowed forward, saying, "He made me so mad last night, I just don't want to have to deal with the sight of his face this early." The boys sat down and munched happily, waving to Jade when she slunked in a few minutes after them in the cafeteria.

"Hey, where's my brother at?" Jade asked grumpily, still drowsy from sleep.

"I couldn't care less," Ulrich grumbled, shoving a jellied slice of toast into his mouth. Jade smirked through her morning irritation, feeling it was completely regular and ordinary for her twit brother to annoy someone this early.

"Honestly, Odd ought to be here," Jeremy said. "Maybe he didn't wake up!"

"Forget about it," Ulrich hissed after taking a long swig of milk from his cup. "It's his problem if he misses the test. He didn't even study."

"We can't let him miss his exam," Jeremy argued.

"Yes, we can," Ulrich snapped. He shoved his chair back and snatched up his tray, carrying it haughtily to the trash. With a shrug to Jeremy's concerned look, Jade rose to follow, as did Jeremy. Outside, Yumi joined them, having walk from her off campus home.

"Hey guys," Yumi greeted. "No Odd today?"

"He hasn't woken up yet," Jade said with a roll of her eyes.

"I'm beginning to worry," Jeremy said, biting his lip nervously. "Let's go check on him."

"No way," Ulrich cried, shaking his head. "We'll be late for our test!"

"Not if we hurry!" Jade chimed, finally fully awake and tugging on each of the boy's hands to the dormitory. Yumi waved farewell to her pals before heading to her Spanish class. The trio dashed through the abandoned halls, all the others students having already risen, eaten, and heading to their classes. "Geez, he's fast asleep," Jade said with her crinkled nose, shaking her head in disbelief as Ulrich opened their bedroom door.

"Well, let's wake him up, hurry," Jeremy urged, shifting his laptop bag's shoulder pad from one shoulder to the other. If they didn't hurry, they most certainly would be tardy.

"Odd, wake up!" Ulrich shouted so loud that Jade's ear rang. Odd didn't move from where he laid motionless on his bed. Ulrich stalked across the room quickly and aggressively before shaking Odd harshly. "Odd, wake up, will you?"

"This is the same stupid joke he used to pull back at home," Jade frowned, leaning against the doorjamb and giving a toss of her purple and green bangs. "Whenever Dad would try to wake him, he'd try to fake that he was still asleep!" Ulrich began shaking his best friend harder, resisting the urge to slap him; he still had those headphones on his head, and the music was still so loud that he could hear that annoying song Odd had been playing on loop all night long the evening before. He'd never stopped listening.

"We're gonna' be late," lamented Jeremy as he shuffled his feet nervously, his heavy laptop bag's shoulder pad digging into his skin. Ulrich shook his friend harder still, and Odd's head rolled around so Jade could see his expression. His mouth was wide open and drooling, but his eyes were open completely wide, staring right at his twin sister, but unseeing.

"Woah!" Ulrich was not prepared for how quickly Jade had zipped across the room, or how she had gripped his shirt and thrown him out of her way to get to her brother. Ulrich's back slammed noisily against the wardrobe before he crumpled to the floor. He was certain that was going to bruise. "Hey!" he shouted at her, his voice a mix of surprise and rage.

"Something's wrong," Jade choked, cradling her brother's limp head in her hands and staring into Odd's sightless gaze. "Odd? Odd? Odd, it's me, Jade!" She tapped Odd's cheek with more gentleness than Jeremy had ever seen the girl capable of before. "This isn't a joke," she whimpered, her voice cracking as she turned to look back at Jeremy. "Call the infirmary!" A few minutes after Ulrich had called, Jim arrived to take Odd's limp body to the nurse's office. With Jade's help, Jim hoisted Odd's limp form onto a gurney.

A few minutes passed, and the group could be found huddled around a cot in the infirmary as the school nurse Yolanda shinned a flashlight into the young man's eyes. She dragged a sharp needle along his bare foot, snapped her fingers aside his ears, and ran several other response based tests before sighing heavily. "Call the hospital, we'll need transport called out," she nodded to Jim.

Jeremy felt a disturbance in the air beside him, and turned to see Jade rush from the infirmary. Jeremy elbowed Ulrich, whose ashen face turned to follow Jeremy's gaze before following his friend. Outside, Jade's gaze blurred, the highlights and bright lights of the morning around her crashing together in a haphazard mixing of uncoherent and unrecognizable shapes. She ran wildly, pumping her lungs and arms as she ran recklessly across the campus, pushing herself faster and faster, until the burning in her muscles was so intense and painful, she could almost, _almost_ , forget what was happening. She bent at the waist and breathed hard, finally stopping her blind escape attempt, and found herself standing at the forest's edge.

Everything was painful. The brightness of the sun on her back, the sting of the air pumping through her lungs, the image of her brother's dead eyes. It was too much. With an unholy screech, she fell onto her hands and knees, beaten. She breathed heavily, trying to shove the knot in her throat back down. A pair of passing students, assumedly a couple ditching classes to be together, who were walking nearby openly gawked at her, whispering to each other. Jade turned her intense, heated gaze unsparingly to the duo, snarling a string of extremely offensive insults at them. The two jumped and scurried away, quick to get out of her gaze.

A supportive hand pressed onto her shoulder from above. "Hey, he's going to be okay," Ulrich whispered hoarsely, trying to contain his own emotions. "He's gonna-"

"Get away from me!" Jade snarled, pulling her shoulder away and crawling away a few feet. She willed the welling tears to disappear. Inside her abdomen, she was certain her stomach, liver, and whatever else was in there was shredding themselves apart. She was certain her brain was liquefying and her heart was pounding in her chest so hard, she was certain it would rip out. Everything was pain. Everything was anger.

"Jade, the ambulance will be here any minute," Jeremy ventured slowly. "They are taking him to the hospital. You might want to…ya' know," he trailed off slowly. Jade rose slowly and dragged herself back across the campus at a snail's pace without so much as a glance at her pals, with the intent of riding with her brother. The idea of riding in a bumpy car, white with indifference and the emotionless, beeping of monitors, with some strangers who claim to know things about what might be happening as they poke and prod her sibling's motionless body made her feel nauseous. When she could hear the far off siren singing, she resolved to ride with him, regardless of how lonely it might feel. Jade heard thudding feet behind her as she watched coldly her brother being wheeled outside on a stretcher.

"Hey, Jade, I just heard," Yumi huffed, skidding to a stop beside her friend. "What happened?" Jade glared at Yumi heatedly, turning her back to her buddy sharply. Jade followed the stretcher closely, her fingers intertwined with Odd's stiff ones. Yumi chewed her lip nervously, glancing over at the guys.

"We…aren't really sure," Ulrich choked, itching the back of his neck nervously as Jade climbed in behind her brother.

"We went to check on him this morning when he didn't come to breakfast, and found him unresponsive and still with his headphones on in his bed," Jeremy moaned, taking off his glasses and rubbing the lenses smudge free.

"I'm going with him," Ulrich suddenly announced, climbing into the ambulance. Jade shot to her feet and dropped her brother's hand, facing Ulrich with a warped expression of rage.

"Get. Out," she growled, fists balled. Ulrich froze, fearful of the amount of anger he saw in her eyes. Never before had he been the focus of Jade's rage, and seeing it from the perspective of the target was overwhelming.

"Jade, I just wann-" he tried to say.

"GET OUT!" She shoved him roughly in the chest and the young man went stumbling out the ambulance rear doors, barely keeping his feet, and almost spilling onto the ground. "I want to be with him alone!"

"Hey, no fighting, or you'll be left behind," the medic barked coldly, her glare not matching the intensity of Jade's. Ulrich blinked up at Jade as he rubbed his chest, which he knew was already bruising. More than just his body was hurt.

"He isn't coming," Jade hissed back at the EMT, pointing at Ulrich. "He isn't family, and he isn't welcome." Jade turned back to Ulrich slowly, her snarl still on her lips. Ulrich yearned to be by Odd's side, and to hear Jade tell him she wasn't angry with him. He yearned to see her smile up at him, but the expression on her face was far from fond. As the medics closed the doors, the last thing Ulrich saw was Jade's narrow eyes, piercing him with the unsaid accusation that this was his fault.

The sirens blaring scream slowly faded as the van zipped away, and Ulrich felt numb. He heard Yumi ask for specific details, and Jeremy filling her in, but it was as if his head was underwater, and all the words were muffled and wobbly. "It's my fault," he heard himself whisper. He wasn't sure how speech was possible, as his tongue felt three times too large for his mouth and his throat felt as if he'd swallowed a rock, now lodged inside.

"No, it isn't," Jeremy immediately argued, frowning in disagreement.

"Jade blames me, and she's right," Ulrich spat. "If I hadn't lost my temper and left him alone last night, none of this would've happened." Yumi threw her arms around Ulrich in a tight hug, and although this usually would've made Ulrich unbelievably happy, not even Yumi's affection could penetrate his numbness.

"Hey, come on, how could've you known that?" Yumi cooed, trying her best to comfort her friend. After a few moments of him not reciprocating the gesture, Yumi let her arms slide from his shoulders and turned to Jeremy. "I bet this was X.A.N.A," she said.

"No way," Jeremy sighed, rolling his eyes. "X.A.N.A isn't strong enough to attack people directly." Delmas approached the small group just then, telling them that due to the traumatic nature of the event and their personal attachment to Odd, they would be excused from the day's classes. They thanked the principal and wandered away, burdened heavily with thoughts for their best friend's wellbeing. Worried to leave Ulrich alone with such self-blame, Jeremy and Yumi stuck by his side, unable to think of anything to say, but hoping just their closeness would make him feel better.

Jade's whole world was flattened and simplified to a single sequence of beeps. The heart monitor beside Odd's bed was slow, incredibly slow. Every moment that the monitor beeped, signaling that her brother's heart had pumped fresh blood to his body, Jade felt as if she'd won Olympic gold and wanted to weep tears of joy. However, these moments were followed by several seconds of utter silence, as seconds passed before Odd's heart would pump again. In these moments, where the monitor was silent and Odd's heart was still, Jade felt a gaping hole rip wider in her soul. The constant swaying of emotional extremes was exhausting.

In reality, although Jade could hear nothing in the moments between the monitor's beeping, the hospital was in chaos. Doctors and nurses ran to and fro, a clipboard was dropped and kicked along the hallway, skidding loudly. Thudding, running feet, and shouts of emergency rang loudly. Yet, As Jade stared unblinkingly at the monitor, believing that her sheer will alone could make Odd's heart beat again, she heard none of the chorus.

Her concentration was broken as a nurse dashed in and checked some of the instruments attached to her brother's arms, shattering her reverie. Tid bits of alarming information was finally heard by the young girl. As the nurse left, calling something to someone loudly, Jade yanked out her phone. "Jeremy, I think X.A.N.A may have launched an attack," she whispered into the mouthpiece, again staring intently at the heart rate monitor screen. "The doctors are saying there are more coma patients just like Odd here. Have Aelita search for pulsations on Lyoko."

"Are you sure?" Jeremy asked, glancing in worry at Yumi, who raised an eyebrow in question. The group was sitting in a circle, bathing in the sunlight on the forest's edge. Ulrich sat staring at the ground, none of the outer world penetrating his inner sphere of guilt.

"JUST DO IT!" Jade screeched, snapping her phone shut and shoving it back into her pocket. In the bedlam of the hospital, another screaming voice was not thought of as strange. Jade refocused onto the screen, pouring all her strength into forcing the flat green line to spike again.

Jeremy pulled out his computer and quickly updated Aelita on the situation, peeking over his shoulder to make sure that no one was watching them, while Yumi tried unsuccessfully to engage Ulrich in conversation. Aelita agreed to search for signs of a launched attack on Lyoko, and as Jeremy closed his laptop, the bell signaling the lunch period rang.

The group slowly rose to their feet, shuffling wordlessly towards the cafeteria as they joined the river of teenaged bodies heading in that direction. Ulrich felt sick and angry at the students about him, some talking animatedly, a pair of sixth graders complaining about their homework assignment, a tall upperclassman girl laughing loudly at an unheard joke. Didn't they know what was happening? Didn't they know Odd was in trouble? They were so selfish, living their lives unperturbed as his one of his best friend's fought for his life and the other hated him. What could they possibly be complaining or laughing about while Odd was in a coma?

Ahead, Sissy fell heavily to the ground, her head slamming against the stone walkway. "What a klutz," someone muttered, walking around Sissy's fallen form without missing a step. Yumi watched as more and more students passed by the girl, and felt her stomach drop as Sissy continued to lay there, motionless.

Jeremy dropped to his knees by Sissy's head, and the foreboding he'd been feeling all morning increased when he saw that the principal's daughter had her headphones in, blaring the same song Odd had been listening to all night, and had been found still listening to when they discovered him just hours ago. "Sissy? Sissy, wake up!" Jeremy called, shaking the girl gently. Sissy's hair fell away from her face, and a chill ran up Ulrich's body. Sissy's jaw was slack, and her eyes were impossibly wide open, staring straight in front of her.

"Someone find Delmas!" Yumi shouted, glaring at a younger student with blonde pigtails. The girl immediately dashed away, screaming for the principal. Jeremy pulled one of the earbuds from the older girl's ear canal. He held it up to his own ear, closing his eyes in focus and trying to ignore the circle of whispering onlookers that now surrounded him. At first, the song sounded relatively normal. The same old hip hop beats that most the other children his age loved throbbed from the small earpiece, swirling inside his head.

Ulrich watched carefully. Jeremy's eyes began to glazed over, and he began to slump to one side. Yumi dove and caught Jeremy before he hit the ground. "Jeremy, snap out of it!" Yumi cried, panicked. Ulrich yanked the earbud away from Jeremy's ear, throwing onto the ground in disgust and crushing it beneath his sneaker. As Ulrich hopped around to Sissy's other ear and destroyed the other earpiece, Jeremy slowly regained consciousness and control of his body.

Delmas skidded to a halt beside his daughter, several other teachers in tow. As the principal shouted for the others to head to the lunch room and for the adults to help him move Sissy to the infirmary, it was easy for the trio to slip into the shadows of the forest.

"Jade, it's the music," Yumi panted into her cell phone as the three wove their way to the manhole. "It's the music that's causing all this."

"Well, hurry up and fix it," Jade croaked into the receiver. "His heart… it's getting even slower."

"You aren't going to meet us at the factory?" Yumi asked as Ulrich rolled the iron lid away from the underground ladder.

"I won't leave him," Jade whispered, shutting her phone and ending the call.

"Jade's staying with Odd," Yumi told the boys as she began clamoring down into the earth recklessly. "We have to hurry, he's worsening." Ulrich's leg pumped the cement below his skateboard, shoving it faster and faster behind him. Before they knew it, they'd reached the factory. Jeremy's hands stung as the friction from slipping down the ropes heated his palms. Yumi was already jabbing the elevator call button impatiently, beeping it again and again.

"Aelita, we're in the lab," Jeremy gasped even before the headset was completely settled on his head.

"Better hurry," Aelita responded in Jeremy's ear. "The pulsations are getting stronger!" Yumi and Ulrich were already in the elevator, the doors cutting off their view of the master chair.

"I'm sending you guys to the northern part of the Mountain sector," Jeremy's voice crackled from the speakers in the scanner room as each Warrior jogged into a scanner. "Aelita says there aren't any monsters near her yet, but you guys should still hurry! Scanner, Yumi. Scanner, Ulrich. Transferring…." Jeremy completed the usual process, his fingers shaking with worry for the twins.

Aelita spotted the virtual outlines of her friends floating above the ground and began running towards them. By the time Yumi's feet hit the dusty Mountain sector floor, Aelita was already by her side. "The tower's over there," Aelita rushed, pointing to the south. Ulrich peered, trying to discern even the slightest of a red glow of an activated tower, but could see nothing. The only indication that Aelita was correct was the quivering, white pulsations leading in the direction Aelita had pointed.

"Well then, we'd better get going," he stated, taking the lead and chasing the trails of vibrations. Several minutes passed, and before they knew it, the soaring tower glared down at them below, its malicious red halo bright and challenging.

"Jeremy, we've reached the tower," Yumi gasped, bending at the waist and placing her hands on her knees.

"Alright, then…wait I'm getting a call," Jeremy answered from above. "I'll patch it through so you guys can hear it." A few moments passed by, and was followed by a quiet click that seemed to come from all directions in the Lyoko sky. "Jade, is that you?"

"Jeremy, it's awful," Jade sobbed into her phone. "Odd-Odd stopped breathing!" A gasp for air interrupted her sentence before she gulped down another sob. "They've got him on this, this thing, I think they called it a respirator, it's making him breathe! He-he isn't even breathing on his own anymore!"

"Jade, we are hurrying," Jeremy wavered, trying to sound calm and confident, despite feeling as if the world was collapsing about him.

"Well, be faster," Jade snapped, her emotions swinging between anger and distraught. "More and more people in comas are being wheeled in as we speak. If you don't hurry…." Her words trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

"We will," Jeremy assured his friend. "And Jade?"

"What?" she said quietly, exhaustion permeating through her tone.

"We…we are all there with you. With you and Odd," Jeremy ended awkwardly. He felt fraught, and wanted to be there with her. He knew he couldn't be, he had to run the mission but… he felt awful not being at Odd's bedside. Jade ended the call after a few moments of silence, wordlessly shutting her phone. "Did you guys hear all that?" Jeremy asked the Warriors.

"Yeah, and it's just more reason for us to hurry," Aelita nodded, beginning to jog towards the tower.

"Wait," Ulrich cautioned, stepping in front of his charge protectively and unsheathing his sword. There, and there, and there, three Bloks had scaled the vertical sides of the Mountain sector, approaching unseen. Yumi yanked out her fan instinctively and threw one without waiting to consider. It sliced through the nearest Blok perfectly, halving it evenly before it exploded.

"Aelita, run for cover!" Yumi gasped as she caught her returning fan mid-combat roll as she dodged a volley of lasers. Aelita ran behind a boulder as Ulrich absorbed his own lasers with the blade of his katana. He Supersprinted forward and shoved his blade hilt deep into the monster's Eye before dodging back from the explosion. "Jeremy we're almost there!" Yumi called, focusing on the last Blok.

"Great, finish up quickly and get to the tow…." Jeremy felt his gaze waver weakly. A large, blinking red X.A.N.A eye flashed briefly on his computer before a familiar tune began to sing from his earpiece. Jeremy tore his headset off with a gasp, trying to shake his head clear of the fog that had been creeping up on him.

The symbol flashed again before the same toxic song began to screech from the speakers on the monitor. "Jeremy? Jeremy, are you alright?" Jeremy could hear Aelita's worried question quietly from the earpiece on the floor as he began to feel consciousness leave him. Everything about his body felt heavy as his lids began to fall shut in drowsiness. He fought the black curtain of a coming coma, trying to command his suddenly thick and uncooperative fingers to type in the date and time of the Return to the Past, should the mission succeed. He sweated with the effort as he clicked at the keyboard. Just before he slipped into the abyss, he punched the 'enter' key.

"Jeremy? Jeremy, answer me!" Aelita yelled, cowering from the battle behind the boulder.

"Odd, snap out of it!" Jade screeched as she ran along his rolling hospital bed. Several nurses and doctors pushed him along at a rapid pace, talking loudly and saying things that Jade couldn't understand. Seconds ago, his heart had stopped pumping.

"Wait, we can't let you go in there!" a bitter nurse quipped as the rest of her twin brother's entourage disappeared behind the operation room doors.

"Are you insane?" Jade howled back, her green and purple hair wild and frayed. "I'm going in there!" She tried to shove the nurse aside and charge in behind the group.

"Halt!" The stern woman cried, savagely seizing Jade's arm, digging her nails into Jade's pale skin. "Security!" Blue arms materialized from thin arm and wrapped around Jade's arms and torso, dragging her away.

"Let me go!" Jade bellowed, kicking the guards in the shins, even freeing one of her arms long enough to land a mean right hook straight into one of the officer's noses. "Let me go, I NEED to be with him! Stop it!" The world swirled as tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Aelita, let's go, we have to hurry," Ulrich called after having slayed the final Blok. After having peeked carefully around the boulder's cusp to ensure the coast was clear, she bolted from the rock's shadow. She lithely hopped across the floating platform that were the final obstacle that stopped her from the tower's base. She barreled into the bulbous wall, instantly being absorbed into the tower's inner chamber.

She dashed to the center of the platform and quickly rose to the upper ring, pressing her palm into the translucent interface. "Tower: deactivated," she breathed. Ulrich felt momentarily dizzy as an explosion of white light raced towards him and Yumi. Time inverted and reversed, and Ulrich felt as if both time had stopped completely and as if he was stuck in the whitewash for ages as the day reversed to Jeremy's coordinates.

Ulrich had to blink several times to realize where he was again. He was back in his dorm room, sitting at his desk, with his physics book open before him. Behind him, Odd was singing obnoxiously again, headphones still glued to his head. The thought to kill him crossed Ulrich's mind again, but he figured he'd try a different approach.

"Hey, Odd, would you mind tutoring me, since you're so good at physics? I just don't think that I'll pass if I study on my own." Odd yanked his headphones off his head, a slightly prideful grin on his mouth at Ulrich's request.

"Man, of course I will," he replied. "But first, you gotta' listen to this new song called _Under My Cover_."

"Come on, Odd," Ulrich groaned, his patience growing thin; he'd lived this night before, and he was already fed up with it. Odd shrugged and began reading the page of problems Ulrich had before him.

An hour later, Ulrich laid awake in bed, Odd's incessant snoring blaring in his ears. Odd had helped him for quite some time, but soon, both boys had tuckered out. Now, staring at the black ceiling, Ulrich was being kept awake by a gnawing nervousness.

A quiet knock on the bedroom door jostled Ulrich from his inner concerns, calling him out of bed. Peeking over to make sure that Odd wasn't awake, he opened the door and squinted against the bright hall lights. "Jade!" he gasped, suddenly aware of his bare chest. She stood before him in her own purple night gown, her eyes wide and filled to the brim with concern. "What are you doing, if you get caught in the boy's hall at this hour…."

"I wanted to…to check on him," Jade whispered, glancing around nervously. She wouldn't meet his gaze, and just stared over his head. She had wondered if she should have even come, but that last thing she remembered was the iron manacles of the security guards meaty hands on her, dragging her away from her dying twin brother. Her whole world.

"Of course," Ulrich immediately stepped aside, and Jade breezed by him without giving him a second glance. Ulrich shut the door behind her quietly, throwing the room back into twilight. He quickly zipped up a brown jacket over his naked chest while she sat on Odd's bed, staring at him. Ulrich felt apprehensive; the last time they'd spoken, Jade had wanted nothing to do with him. She'd been enraged, and rightly so; physical, nearly violent. He didn't know what to do, at such a late hour, in such a tender moment.

The last thing on Jade's mind was Ulrich's emotions and her romantic wishes involving him. At the moment, he didn't even exist. The overwhelming relief she felt was unmatched from anything in her life before. She sat, staring at his wide open snoring mouth, drool sneaking down the left side, his usual tall Mohawk completely mussed. His breath reeked, and his eyes were crusted shut, and yet, Jade couldn't look away for the beauty he was now in comparison to his wide open, frozen coma state. Inside, somewhere near her heart, where she imagined her soul must be kept, something fractured and splintered began to stitch itself back together. He was safe, and she was safe, and everything would be wonderful in the morning. She smoothed back some frizzy blonde hair and kissed her brother on his forehead lightly. "Dummy," she whispered quietly to him before rising.

Jade walked to the door and reached for the doorknob. "Jade, wait, "Ulrich croaked, wanting her eyes on his and her attention. She stared at the wooden door, her hand still just inches from the handle, still not meeting his gaze in the moonlit room.

"Yes?" she finally asked, still not meeting his gaze. In truth, she felt guilty for having yelled at Ulrich when Odd had been in the ambulance, and she knew it wasn't his fault Odd had been hurt in the first place.

"I just wanted to say…." Ulrich felt the knot in his throat swell, making it even more difficult to speak. "I-I know it was my fault, and I'm sorry. It was all my fault, and I wish I hadn't been so-"

"My brother can be a down right idiot," Jade interrupted, glancing over at Odd's sleeping form to make sure their voices weren't too loud. "There were times that I thought I'd strangle him." Jade's eyes met Ulrich's for the first time in what might've been a decade, and Ulrich felt himself begin to relax. "I shouldn't have blamed you for leaving him when he can be such a dolt, and I certainly shouldn't have yelled at you and…." She made a gesture with her hand, trying to apologize for shoving him without admitting to it out loud. "I was just so…."

"I know, and it's okay," Ulrich grinned, finally feeling at peace with his friend again. "I forgive you." Ulrich surprised himself by offering Jade a hug, and Jade sighed as she folded into his arms, their own stolen moment quiet and private. Only the sound of Odd's incessant and never ending snoring interrupted the night.

"I'd better be on my way," Jade finally said, peeling herself from the embrace with a grin. "Besides, you two still have that big test in the morning." Ulrich groaned quietly, smacking his forehead. Jade waved at her crush with a stifled giggle, took one last at her brother's sleeping shadow before slipping out of the room.


	6. Rock Bottom

**This story is getting quite a bit more of a following than I anticipated! Thanks for the interest guys! If you like this, try checking out my other stories? I promise I won't disappoint you, I put a lot of time into my stories so that they are all enjoyable!**

"Alright, a three day weekend!" Ulrich whooped, pumping a fist into the air. "That's fantastic, isn't it?" Yumi smiled at her friends as they stood about in the lobby of the main admissions building, relaxing after their classes.

"With a little luck, I might have the house all to myself," Yumi sighed, daydreaming about how loud she could blast her music. Jeremy chuckled, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

"Yeah, but know your parents, it's not going to be easy," he chuckled, shaking his head. Jade looked between Yumi and Jeremy, then smirked.

"I'm betting on Yumi," she said quietly; her best friend was a force of nature. Ulrich and Odd laughed, agreeing, as the five of them stumbled out of the front door and into the late afternoon light. Each of the virtual heroes went their separate ways, bidding each other a nice evening, before heading to their dorms as Yumi jogged home. As her feet pounded against the hard sidewalk, she mulled over how to convince her parents to leave her home.

The following morning, sunshine poured through the kitchen windows as Yumi strolled into the room, trying to look as relaxed as possible. Her mother and father sat at the table, sipping coffee and consuming their breakfasts.

"Good morning Yumi, did you sleep well?" her mother inquired, not even looking up as her eldest child walked in.

"Yeah, absolutely," Yumi replied, swallowing hard and trying to hide her nervousness. "But I forgot to mention something earlier." Yumi's father raised his eyebrow at her, finally looking up from the newspaper he had been engrossed in. "I didn't tell you, but I've got a lot of homework this weekend." Her dad's straight line of a mouth curved downward, a disapproving frown. "Of course, I'll stay home and look after things." She wrapped her arms around her father's neck, trying to ease the tension and suspicion from his shoulders. "And, if you have nothing against it, I'd like to have a little gathering."

"A gathering to do homework together?" Her father inquired suspiciously, shaking his daughter's hold so he could look her in the eye. "Or to wreck the living room?" Yumi remained quiet, and her mother's smooth face wrinkled in irritation at her daughter's sudden loss for words. It was true; she wanted to throw a party since her little brother and parents would be visiting her grandparents out of town for the weekend.

"Go on, answer your father," her mother quipped. She certainly didn't want to have the living room and house trashed; she knew it was unlikely that her husband would help clean up.

"Well, I, uh, wanted to invite a few friends over for a quiet evening at home," she mumbled, regretting her decision to bring this up over cereal.

"You mean those four clowns," her father grunted, clear disapproval written on his facial features. Yumi felt her pride and love for her friends flame in the pit of her stomach.

"But, Daddy, you hardly even know them!" she whined, indignant.

"They seem…nice enough," her mother offered, trying to calm the oncoming storm.

"I wish you'd trust me a little more," Yumi sighed, her optimistic mood dampened by her father's continual scowl. Silence filled the kitchen, and Yumi started walking out the door when the scraping of her father's chair sounded as he stood up, pushing it back.

"Alright," he sighed, finally withered down by the icy glare his wife was sending him. "They can come." Yumi whipped around, a huge toothy grin plastered on her face.

"That is so great! You won't regret it, you'll see!" she squealed, wrapping her arms around her father's neck and kissing his cheek gratefully. She quickly untangled herself from her father and stumbled over to her mother, wrapping her in her own hug and blubbering thanks. "You guys are the greatest, have a nice weekend!" Yumi dashed to her room, her excited giggles trailing behind her. Her parents smiled at each other, nervous for the well being of their house, but glad to see their usually stoic daughter smile. They both finished their breakfast and returned to their room to finish packing for their long weekend trip just as Yumi was bouncing out the door, calling her thanks and farewells one final time before heading to Kadic.

Yumi skipped up the sidewalk, humming a joyful tune, her mind racing with all the fun things she could do that night with her best friends. She hooked a left and entered campus through the park, and when she finally broke the tree line, she saw her four friends standing where she anticipated them to be; by the vending machines. Jade was snatching a Sprite from the machine just as Yumi jogged up.

"Hey, I've got great news, guys! Tonight, we'll have the house all to ourselves," she chimed, smiling with pride at her accomplishment.

"You did it!" Ulrich grinned, fidgety with excitement.

"We better get organized," Odd said, slicking back a stray hair.

"We will, no problem," Jade reassured her brother, cracking open the carbonated beverage. The other twittered with excitement, all except Jeremy, who glared at the ground, apparently deaf to the news.

"Something wrong, Jeremy?" Yumi probed, irritated to have someone raining on her parade.

"I'm trying to localize Lyoko," Jeremy sighed, his smooth, youthful brow lined with anger. "It shouldn't take this much time!"

"Don't worry," Yumi chipped, not really taking his frustration seriously. "If there's a problem, Aelita will contact you." The bell rang, and as the students made their to their individual classes, Jeremy's glum face didn't lighten.

"Yeah, well, we can always hope," Jeremy growled, slumping to his next class. Jeremy's troubles melted away, and his mood quickly brightened as his love for physics bolstered his optimism. When the bell rang again at noon, he was the last student to leave the room, saddened for his mental escape to end.

The other's waited for him at the entrance to the park, and as they all started walking up the dirt road, the chatter immediately turned to the evenings events; they were going to throw a party, and Yumi's house was the official venue.

"Theo and Benjamin said they'd come," Ulrich said, "but what are we going to do about Sissy?"

"Wouldn't break my heart if she didn't come," Jade grumbled, her purple and green bangs falling in front of her face. "Her, and that horrible music she'd bring with her." Already, in the back of the solemn girls mind, the boy bands and screechy tenors drowned out the heavy bass and shredding guitars that Jade preferred.

"Hey, leave the music to me," Odd said, a grin on his goofy face as he threw his arm around Ulrich's shoulder. Jeremy shot Odd a nervous look, and Jade smirked.

"Have we go a real surprise for you," Jade sang.

"We're gonna' have a real DJ, guys!" Odd continued, the twins completing each other's sentences.

"No lame music for us, you'll see," Jade continued.

"We're gonna' rock," Odd finished. They fist bumped loudly, and Ulrich shot the other two a nervous look.

"Alright, see you later," Yumi laughed, shaking her head at Ulrich's secret worry. "We'll go shopping after class."

"Okay, in the mean time," Jeremy interjected, "I'm gonna' contact Aelita, warn her to be careful tonight. You never know." They each split up, the students going to their own classes while Jeremy took the liberty of his free period to contact Aelita. After he had warned her to be on high alert, the two got to chatting, basking in the other's company in a rare moment of solitude together. Not long afterwards, a loud knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

"Jeremy, get out here!" Odd called loudly.

"What was that?" Aelita asked, her voice cracking over the radio waves.

"Just Odd being Odd," Jeremy groaned, standing up from his computer chair. "I've gotta go," Jeremy said with a apologetic smile. The two said their goodbyes, and finally, Jeremy exited into the dorm hallway, where he was greeted with a familiar sight that made him grin.

"Annnnddd now it's time for Ulrich to get ready and enter the starting box," Odd announced, pretending to speak into a loud speaker, using his cell phone, which had Yumi on the other end. Down the hall, Ulrich was in his socks, his sneakers kicked to the side. Close to where Jeremy and Odd stood, two white lines in chalk were drawn, marking the stopping zone. "Tensions are high, ladies and gentlemen," Odd cried, getting deeper into character. "As he zeros in on his objective, the time keeper is about to signal his departure.

Odd looked over at Jeremy and bowed, his arm wide and welcoming. Jeremy shook his head with a chuckle, and raised his hand into the air, curling his digits into the shape of a hand gun. "Bang," he said, half heartedly. Ulrich charged down the hallway, and Odd took no time to allow for silence.

"ANNNDDD he's off and running! What grace! What agility! What great speed he's got!" Ulrich sprinted down the hall, and at the first marker, shoved his feet flat onto the wood floor, sliding down the hall with his slippery socks. "Here we go…he's ready for the sliding phase!" Odd cheered, egging on his friend. "What perfect knee coordination!" The heavy metal doors at the end of the dorm hallway were quickly approaching. "Ready and…stop!" Ulrich dug his heels into the floor as he entered the stopping zone, skidding to a halt, inches from the cold, metal wall. "Wow….he beat me," Odd huffed in defeat.

"Wow, Ulrich went farther than you?" Yumi's voice cracked over the receiver.

"Well then," Ulrich snipped, his chest puffed out in pride. "How did I make out?" Jeremy bent and grabbed a piece of chalk off the wood floor and went over to Ulrich's toes, marking how close he was to the door.

"A new dorm record," he reported, shaking his head.

"What's all this racket about?" shouted a booming voice. _Oh, no,_ thought Odd. Jim thundered down the hallway towards them.

"Gotta' hang up," Odd whispered into his phone. "Secret code: Big Fat Clown."

"Alright, gotcha," Yumi smirked, shaking her head. "Jade and I are gonna' set up, talk to you later." She disconnected the call and smiled at Jade, who sat on her bed with her. "Ulrich beat Odd's high score."

Back at the dorms, the three prepubescent males stood in a line, their heads hung low, as Jim berated them. "Come on, Jim, we're just a little bored! There's nothing to do here," Ulrich interjected, tired of pretending to be ashamed.

"I really don't understand," Jim growled, glaring at Ulrich. "Every long weekend, you kids stay in school ; you never go _anywhere!_ If for once, you guys took a vacation, I'd have some peace and quiet!"

"That just goes to show you how much we _love_ this place," Odd jeered, smirking. Jeremy elbowed him in the arm, telling him to be quiet.

"Oh yeah?" Jim sneered in irritation. "I bet that's because at home, your parents are sick of ya'!" Odd immediately felt all the goofiness drain from him; Jim didn't know how close to home he'd gotten. Odd and Jade's parents couldn't care less about them. They only had each other, brother and sister, to take care of one another. "Let's go, I want all of you to go back to your rooms on the double!" The three students grumbled in irritation, but mumbled that they were headed there that very moment. As soon as Jim exited the hallway via the heavy metal doors, the three trouble makers smirked mischievously.

"Your turn, Odd," Ulrich chuckled. Odd nodded, then checked his wristwatch.

"We'd better hurry, huh?" Odd said as he walked away, sharing a secretive wink with the other two; the party would start in a few minutes. Odd walked down to the starting point, and Jeremy raised his hand once more into the air.

"Bang!" he said, more enthusiastically. Odd began sprinting down the hall, and just as he came up to the marker signaling the beginning of the sliding phase, something caught Ulrich's eye,

"Odd, you forgot to take off your shoes!" he called. Too late; Odd tried to shoved his feet into the wood, intending to slid, but the rubber traction on the bottom of his sneakers squeaked on the floor, and he flew face first onto the floor with a cry. Jeremy and Ulrich knelt in front of their friend, not even trying to hide their chuckles.

"You okay, Odd?" Jeremy snickered. Odd began to pull himself off of the floor.

"Hey, didn't I beat the record?" he said sarcastically. Ulrich bent and picked p something that fell from Odd's pocket.

"Is this your surprised disk jockey?' Ulrich chuckled, appraising the pretty girl the photo was of.

"You- you mean you don't recognize her?" Odd said, quickly standing and snatching the photograph back. "She goes to school here. Her name's Samantha." He began walking away, his warm, friendly personality suddenly chilling. "See you later," he called over his shoulder, "I've got some work to do before the party."

"Hey, aren't you gonna' introduce us to her?" Ulrich called out, wagging his eyebrows. Odd walked away quietly, ignoring the jeer. He quickly snuck outside, and dashed to the Technology building. Silhouetted against the harsh glare of the late afternoon sun was the outline of a girl. Odd felt his pulse quicken as he approached.

Back in Jeremy's room, Jeremy sighed with frustration as he crossed his arms, glaring at his computer screen, daring it to beep one more time. "I don't believe it," he groaned to himself, removing his glasses and rubbing angrily at the bridge of his nose. "That's the _fifth_ time I've launched the localization program. The network must really be blocked…I can't get in contact with Lyoko!" He bent over his computer keyboard, his fingers clicking away quickly, the sound of the keys tapping drowning out the vibrations from his cell phone on his bed.

"Where are they?" Yumi hissed in irritation, disconnecting with Jeremy's phone.

"Cheer up," Jade said, trying to stay optimistic. "I'm sure they'll be here soon." In the pit of her stomach, Jade knew something was wrong; Odd hadn't texted her back yet, and that was a rare occasion.

"Uh, hello," Odd called nervously back at Kadic Academy, approaching the figure. She turned around, her black hair shimmering, the red frames twirling out.

"Hi," she responded back in surprise, her eyes wide

"How are you?" he asked courteously, flashing his most charming smile. The girl, Samantha, the DJ for the party, eyed his grin with a raised eyebrow. Suavely, Odd leaned in and kissed her full on the mouth, causing her to blink in surprise. He pulled back confidently, winking at her. He wanted to make her his. "Did you have any trouble getting in?" Samantha was hardly the first girl to come under his sights; he knew how to put on the moves.

"No, no, trouble," Samantha said quickly looking away, eager to hide her surprise and embarrassment. "The gates were really easy to climb." Odd sidled closer, smiling warmly.

"When are you going to show me what you are going to do at the party?" he asked curiously.

"When I'm finished; I need to add a little more… stuff, but I haven't found anything I like yet," she sniffed, straightening her black shirt.

"You should try the old vinyl records," Odd suggested helpfully, sneakily silencing his cell phone, which was buzzing in his pocket; couldn't his sister give him a few minutes alone? "There's lots of really great stuff on vinyl, if you want, I'll lend you some."

"Can we stop talking about music?" She groaned, cutting off the end of his sentence. "We got better things to do, don't you think?" Odd stared at her, flabbergasted that she had cut him off. She leaned in close, putting her face closer to his. "Ready for a big thrill session?" Odd felt a shiver run the length of his back, and he felt himself losing control of the situation.

"Ye-yeah, I guess," Odd choked, trying to regain his confident aura.

"Well," she sniffed, turning her back to him and climbing the steps to the Technology building's front doors, "take me to the computer room, Odd." She climbed the steps, her stride long and strong, and Odd felt nervous as he followed her inside, trying to think of a way to reassert his dominance in the pairing.

Back in his dorm, Belpois bounced his knee nervously in his computer chair, thinking he almost had it. One more operation and… "Aelita? Aelita, it's me, Jeremy, can you read me Aelita?"

"Hello, Jeremy," came her sweet, angelic voice over the monitor. On the screen, her profile picture popped up, showing a happy grin on her face. "How are you?"

"So so," Jeremy sighed, unable to hide his own grin when he finally saw her face.

"Why? What's wrong?" she asked, her grin falling a little.

"I've had such a hard time contacting Lyoko!"

"Oh, that's nothing new," Aelita giggled, her high pitched voice crackling over the channels. "Lyoko's constantly changing its access points on the network." Jeremy's door cracked open, and Ulrich popped his head in.

"Hey, feel like playing some chess?" he offered. Jeremy grinned at his pal over his shoulder, holding up a finger.

"Be right there," he replied. He quickly told Aelita a hasty farewell, saying he would talk with her more alter, before jogging to the door.

Across campus, Samantha eyed a laptop with narrowed eyes, a sneer on her full lips. "Wow, what kinda' power does this one got?" she asked , turning Odd as he stealthily close the door behind them.

"Oh, I don't know," Odd replied, shrugging. "Two gigas?" Samantha reached out and disconnected the laptop from its charging port, tucking it under her arm. "Hey, cut that out!" Odd said, glaring at his most recent love interest. "Put that down, you hear? What are you doing?" Odd reached to grab the school's property from her, but she blocked his hand with her forearm, knocking it away.

"If I'm gonna' make music, I'm gonna' need a powerful computer, but I'm broke. I've got no choice but to rip this one off." Odd felt his mouth hang open. How on earth did he lose control over the situation so fast? Samantha turned and head for the door. "You're schools ensured, so everybody's happy, right?" she called over her shoulder. Odd felt his emotions at war; he found Samantha beautiful and mysterious, but this was so wrong. He wanted things to work out between them but… he shook his head. There were plenty of girls out there, and this one wasn't one of the better ones.

"Wrong!" Odd shouted after her. "Insurance or not, stealing is a crime." He went and snatched her shoulder, spinning her around so she was no longer headed for the door, but facing him.

"Hey!" Samantha cried in protest as she spun around, "You—" Odd's hand suddenly clamped over her mouth, quieting her words. Outside the closed door to the computer storage room, footsteps approached. Samantha shoved the computer into Odd's hands before dodging under the desk, hiding. Before Odd could react, the door creaked open, and Jim stood there, staring in disgusted disappointment.

"I never would've believed it of you, Odd," he grunted, clearly shocked.

"I wasn't going to steal it Jim, I swear!" Odd gasped as he realized how it looked. He set it down on the table Samantha hid under and backed away, trying to put distance between him and his actions. Why on earth did he ever let her into this room? Jim shook his head, the anger and disbelief growing on his stubbly face.

"So what _were_ you going to do with it?" he asked roughly. Odd struggled, reaching for any explanation that could save him, but Jim's towering form came closer. "You've got some explaining to do," Jim hissed, pointing to the open door. "Follow me." Odd slipped by Jim and out the door, with the expression of a whipped puppy as Jim followed him and closed the door behind them. Locking them firmly, Jim herding Odd away, leaving Samantha stuck in the storage room.

Odd slouched across campus, his head hung in shame, Jim hot on his heels as they strode to Jim's office. "Checkmate," Jeremy cheered, smiling at his chess victory. Ulrich and Jeremy sat on a picnic table under a tree, the wooden chess set before them. Ulrich nibbled his lip in frustration, trying to find a way out of the checkmate.

"Can I try beating you at something like karate?" Ulrich sighed in defeat. Just as Jeremy opened his mouth to respond, they heard Jim a ways off, telling Odd to pick up the pace "Looks like trouble," Ulrich groaned. The pair slunk in the shadows, following them all the way inside the administration building. Jeremy pressed his ear to the wooden door, eavesdropping on Odd's lecturing.

"Well, Odd, this time, you are in one heck of a jam," Jim's voice warbled through the door. "That's for sure, kid…. Caught in the act stealing a computer that is school property isn't like not doing your homework."

Ignoring Ulrich's whispered warnings, Jeremy threw open the door, entering Jim's office uninvited. "Listen, Jim," Jeremy began, ignoring Jim's sputters of surprise. "This is crazy!" Jeremy and Ulrich walked in, standing on both sides of their friend in his defense. Odd's gaze stayed focused on the carpet, his eyes narrowed with his vow of silence. "Whenever Odd needs a computer, I lend him mine. I've done it lots of times. Go on, tell him, Odd." Silence filled the room, and Odd finally sighed. Why on earth did he feel the need to protect her?

"Yeah, well, only this time," Odd mumbled, hating himself for doing it, "I needed a really powerful laptop, and that one was just perfect."

"So why didn't you just ask permission to borrow it?" Jim interrogated, ignoring the open hinged mouths of Jeremy and Ulrich's surprise. "It seems to me that would've been much simpler."

"Well, I was afraid that you would say no," Odd growled, tense with the coming punishment. The elephant in the room got bigger, and the quiet was finally shatter when Jim slammed his fist on the desk with a grunt of anger, causing the pencils in their holder to clatter together loudly. The three male students flinched away, apprehension and slight fear on their face.

"What do you think I am, an idiot?" Jim growled, his mouth curled into a grimace. He stood up, his chair skidding back and crashing into the wall, causing Jeremy to cry out in surprise and jump back. "I want the truth right now!" Odd swiveled his glare from Jim's face back down to the crème carpeted floor, his silence reassumed. "You stole it, didn't you?" Odd bit his teeth, the truth trapped in his mouth. "This time it's the school's Disciplinarian Council, and you just might get expelled." Odd's eyes widened, true fear filling his eyes.

"Huh? Wait, no, you can't do that to me, Jim!" he begged. At that moment, Odd's cell phone rang. Jim's brow furrowed deeper in anger.

"The use of phones is strictly forbidden on school grounds!" he shouted, the whole situation sending him over the edge. With a defiant glare, Odd answered the call, his high emotions taking control. "Hand it over, Odd," Jim commanded, holding out his hand. Odd glared back wordlessly, and Jim reached forward and snatched it, confiscating it. Jim sent the three angrily out of the office, telling Odd that a situational review would be performed that evening by the school's faculty board, and that his status as a student would be reviewed.

Choking for air, Odd ran out of the building, sprinting away from the reality and the truth of the day's events. Ulrich and Jeremy launched themselves after him, calling for Odd to slow down. When Odd had crossed the entirety of campus and his lungs burned with relief, he stopped, placing his hands on his knees and breathing. His two best friends caught up to him finally on the soccer field, and Jeremy was the first to broach the subject.

"Okay, tell us what happened, come on Odd," he said, glaring at his friend.

"We can help you, whatever mess you've gotten yourself in," Ulrich said, placing his hand supportively on Odd's shoulder.

"I've got nothing else to say," Odd hissed, shaking off Ulrich's hand. "I've got things to do, alone!" Odd strode off, his shoulder hunched with hatred and frustration. His friends began to follow him, calling for him to trust them, when Odd froze in his tracks. "Do…do you guys see what I see?" Jeremy jogged beside his friend, his eyes narrowing, searching.

Hot vapor was rising steadily from the ground, barely visible, surrounding the Technology Building. The ground shook beneath their feet and before their eyes, the Technology building began sinking into the earth. "X.A.N.A," Odd gasped, eyes wide with fear.

"H-Hey, those sink holes are getting deeper! Everything's going to be swallowed up!" Ulrich yanked out his phone and dialed Jade's number.

"Hello," Jade sang in an unusually cheerful voice. The moment Ulrich mentioned a X.A.N.A attack, she sobered up to her usual quiet self and her thrill for the coming party evaporated. "We'll be at the factory as soon as possible." Jade hit the disconnect button and unplug Yumi's boom box that was screeching heavy rock loudly.

"Hey, I was listening to that!" Yumi snapped, turning on the ladder she was on as she tried to hand some streamers.

"It's X.A.N.A," Jade said. Yumi's scowl immediately blipped off her face, and the streamer she was trying to hang oh so carefully was thrown to the ground, instantly unimportant.

"Let's go," she nodded. The girls sprinted from the house, heading to the factory. Jeremy and Ulrich turned to run when Ulrich confirmed the girls were on their way.

"Hold it," Odd called, stopping his friends in their tracks. "Look, I can't go with you now, Samantha's locked in the Technology Building's computer storage room." His friends stared at him blankly, and as the ground beneath them trembled malevolently, Jeremy sighed.

"Alright, let's go back to the beginning," he groaned, "because I think you lost us, Odd."

"She's the one who stole the computer. I really tried to stop her, but…well, she's already got a lot of problems at her own school." Odd looked at the ground, ashamed. "So I didn't tell Jim."

"No matter what happened, we've gotta' get her outta' there," Ulrich immediately responded. Jeremy agreed, and said that he was going to rush to the lab to virtualize the girls. As Jeremy dashed off to the park to reach the man hole, Ulrich turned to Odd. "Alright, step number one, we pay a little visit to the gymnasium." The ground bucked, and Ulrich almost lost his footing. "Let's hope we're the only ones at school," he muttered as an afterthought.

The pair dashed to the gymnasium, tearing open every cabinet and storage unit until Ulrich grinned with victory. "Bingo," he said, staring at the pole vaults and ropes that were strewn at the bottom of one particular closet. The boys grabbed the equipment and sprinted back to the Technology building; the first floor windows were almost completely submerged. They rapidly scaled the stairs of the adjacent building, as the doors to the first floor were already gone.

"It's at least a 20 meter drop down to there," Odd gulped, eyeing the sinking rooftop across the way.

"Well," Ulrich sighed nervously, "make sure that the rope is attached securely." Back at the lab, Jeremy's fingers flew across the keyboard, trying his hardest to connect to Lyoko again. Unexpectedly, Aelita's portrait popped onto the screen. Even across the fuzzy screen, Jeremy could see the relief that he was finally there.

"Jeremy!" she gasped, her eyebrows furrowed with worry. "You're there at last! X.A.N.A's activated a tower."

"That's what I thought," Jeremy growled, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose in irritation. "We've already been affected.

"Jeremy," Jade's voice said from his earpiece, "Yumi and I are in the scanner room, prepare to virtualize us."

"No problem, ladies," Jeremy sighed, cracking his fingers. "You're headed for the mountain sector. I've got problems connecting to Lyoko, so the landing could be rough." A few more clicks of his rapid fingertips, and the girls stepped into the scanners. "Transfer, Yumi. Transfer, Jade. Scanner Yumi, scanner Jade. Virtualization!" As their earthly bodies fragmentized and split, Odd and Ulrich zip lined across the distance between the two buildings, finally breaching the Technology building. The two dashed for the stairs, racing the sinking building to the first floor.

"Whoa!" Jade hollered, her arms waving crazily as she tried to maintain her balance. She had fallen from the virtual air directly onto the edge of a mountain sector plateau, her toes clinging to the cliff's edge and her heels wagging in thin air. She quickly skittered from the edge and landed on her four paws, her tail twitching with unease.

"A little help?" Yumi called. Her one hand held onto the edge, dangling above the Digital Sea. Jade dashed over and hauled up her best friend, grunting with the effort, trying not to dig her claws into Yumi's skin.

"That was close," Yumi puffed, grinning gratefully to Jade.

"I'll say," Aelita called, hopping onto the platform with the other two. "Where's Odd and Ulrich?"

"This is a girls only mission today," Jade smiled, winking at her friend.

"Well then," Aelita grinned, enjoying being alone with the girls for once, "we've gotta' hurry; X.A.N.A's monsters aren't here yet, but they're bound to come. The tower's not far; in that direction," she said gesturing across several rising and falling, shaking and bumping, tilting and whirling platforms. Across the complex moving pieces, on a still island, the tower stood menacingly.

"Well, this promises to be a charming stroll," Yumi groaned, eyeing the precarious crossing. Aelita grinned over at Yumi.

"It's not hard as all that…if you jump at the right time," Aelita winked.

"I see what you mean," Yumi snorted in disbelief.

"Let's get moving," Jade growled, the small talk wasting valuable time in her eyes. "Odd never answered his phone earlier, and that means something serious is happening back on Earth." She launched herself confidently, landing on the next closest platform to the tower. Aelita and Yumi followed suit, slightly more cautious without the feline balance Back at Kadic, Ulrich kicked down the storage room door; after a brief embrace of reassurance, Odd grabbed Samantha's wrist and began running back to the stairwell.

Finally, the trio reached the second to last island. One more jump, and they'd be on solid ground at the tower's base. "You were right, Aelita," Yumi huffed. "That wasn't too hard."

"Watch out!" Jeremy called from above. "Three Hornets, approaching fast." Buzzing filled the air, and the three winged beasts appeared above the tower before dive bombing towards the Warriors. Yumi flicked out a fan, covering Aelita defensively. Jade prowled forward, a growl in her throat, her ears flicking with agitation.

"Stay behind me," Yumi said, her two fans out and open. The hornets released a volley of lasers, and Yumi stood her ground, blocking the attack carefully with her fans while Jade rolled lithely out of the way. Where the lasers hit the mountain sector's floor, the rock temporarily faded away to show the neon green infrastructure of the digital plateau.

"Not really a party until a fight breaks out," Jade shouted to Yumi across the way. The Hornets banked to the left, and disappeared behind a mountain face. Yumi threw her fan as hard as she could with a cry, hoping to catch them around the blindside. There was a moment of silence where no explosion sounded, and the fan came back around the far side, returning to Yumi dutifully.

"They've disappeared from my control screen," Jeremy gasped, his voice crackling with static.

"Where did they go?" Jade demanded, her head whipping all around, trying to find them.

"I don't know," Aelita whispered, her voice wavering with apprehension. "In this territory, they have the advantage…" She rotated around so that Yumi was watching her back, and she herself her front.

"Yumi!" Jeremy's high pitched squealed shattered the uneasy silence, "look out! The Hornets! They're coming straight at you!" Yumi turned around only to be met with a red laser biting into her shoulder. She cried out in pain and dropped to her knees, clutching her wounded arm as it crackled with electric discharge.

"Jeremy, I'm caught in the crossfire, I don't know what to do," whimpered Yumi, the repetitive jarring of the lasers slamming into her fan making her arms tired. A singled Hornet snuck around Yumi's peripheral. It shot a laser, and Yumi, noticing that she had lost sight of the third Hornet and quickly found it, threw herself as a human shield in front of Aelita.

"Yumi!" Jade shouted, scampering to Aelita's side and tackling her out of the heavy fire as Yumi devirtualized. "Aelita, I don't have any defensive capabilities! Use your Creativity!" Aelita's pure voice rang about the mountain sector, echoing off the canyons and fog. A dome of rock surrounded the two girls, and the Hornets buzzed about the orb angrily, hoping to find a hole.

"Hang in there, guys! Ulrich and Odd are on their way!" Jeremy wailed from above. Shot after shot landed against the dome, and it began cracking under the pressure.

"Oh, no, Jade, we aren't gonna' make it," Aelita cried, her eyes wide with fear.

"Geez, what am I, chopped liver?" Jade grumbled, crouched low to the ground. Aelita blinked at her somber friend with surprise. Jade's face broke into a rare, genuine smile, as she shot he friend a thumbs up. "You think I'd ever let anything happen to you?" Jade closed her eyes, and focused on her ears. Through the rock, she could hear the buzzing of their supersonic wings. Her ears twitched to the left, and she slowly twisted on the balls of her feet towards it, raising her hand. "And…now!"

She shot a Laser Arrow, and just before it collided with the inner wall of their sanctuary, the rock gave way beneath the onslaught of the monsters outside. It's path cleared in the nick of time, the Arrow buried itself into the center Eye of the first Hornet. It exploded on contact, and Jade leapt out of the crack in the wall. "You hoo! Over here!" Jade called to the three remaining Hornets. She began running away, drawing their fire and attention away from Aelita and onto her. She dashed around the perimeter of the small plateau they were situated atop of with all fours, her claws marking the stone beneath her as she zipped around, her tail streaming out behind her. "Jeremy, where's the guys?" she called, one laser barely missing her.

"Right here! Laser Arrow!" Odd launched himself over his sister's head, his arrow punching through the Hornet before he collided with it midair. He skidded across the ground, burying his claws into it to keep him from sliding off the edge.

"Do you always have to be fashionably late?" Jade groaned, finally rising from all fours onto her feet.

"Hey, don't be mad because I look better than you at every party we attend," Odd grinned, rising to his feet as well.

"Help!" Aelita's scream interrupted the sibling's argument.

"Bicker about this later!" Ulrich seethed as he dashed by the feline twins. "Triplicate!" Ulrich surrounded the final Hornet with his clones, and Odd and Jade dashed to pull Aelita from the remains of her summoned shield. As they yanked her free, Ulrich cried out as he was devirtualized. The Hornet had gotten lucky, and had shot the real Ulrich in the chest on its first shot. Aelita clung onto Odd's elbow and back, not wanting to abandon them on the battlefield. Jade balled up the back of Aelita's robes and shoved her away, towards the tower.

"Aelita, go! Let us handle this one! This all stops the moment you deactivate the tower, go!" Jade and Odd rolled in opposite directions , and the Hornet looked between them, confused at who to attack, before diving towards Odd. Aelita tore her eyes away from the battle and dived across the abyss and onto the tower's island before running inside.

"Towers? Aelita? What does all this mean?" said a deep, feminine voice from above. Jade stumbled with surprise and confusion, the voice unfamiliar to her.

"Uh, Jeremy, whose that?" she asked, leaping out of a laser shot towards her.

"That's, uh, Samantha, ya' know? The one DJ-ing for us?" Odd coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment as he crept free from harm.

"You brought her to the factory!" Jade shouted, her attention focused wholly on her idiot brother.

"I didn't have time! Ulrich and I rushed here so—" A laser slammed into Odd's chest and he devirtualized immediately.

"Hah! Serves you right!" Jade laughed as his particles faded to white and defragmented. Jade rolled out of the way of a few lasers, the pushing off the ground with all fours, launched herself into the air. On her way up, her unsheathed claws sliced through the Hornet's Eye in an impressive uppercut. She landed gracefully on both her feet and one of her hands, and the monster exploded behind her.

"Wow! Nice hit, Jade!" came Yumi's voice from above, where she had finally joined Jeremy in the computer room. Jade brushed off her palm with a small grin, unable to hide her confidence on Lyoko.

"Who needs a man to come around and save the day, anyway?" she mused. After a moment, Jeremy announced a return to the past, and Jade's vision brightened to a blinding intensity, her mind frozen as time reversed itself.

The Della Robbia twins were the antsiest out of the group of five for the school day to finish. They'd already lived this day once before, and having to live it again only postponed the party further. This time, the boys skipped their hallway sports and shenanigans to convince Samantha that stealing the school computer wasn't necessary, as Jeremy's desktop was better anyways. She mixed her music legally using Jeremy's system, and the three guys and her quickly left for Yumi's house.

Upon their arrival, they found that they were the last to arrive; everyone they had invited, even those who invited themselves like Sissy, were already there. Sam popped in her mix, and as the throbbing beats shook the frame of the house and the lights were dimmed to set the proper mood, Yumi couldn't help but feel satisfied. The decorations that she and Jade had put up all over again were wonderful, the food was delicious, and for once, without having to worry about her parent's judgmental comments and sneers, she was able to be in her own home with her friends.


	7. Code: Earth

Jeremy stared at his computer screen intently, the late moonlight glimmering insistently through the closed blinds. "I'm sure it's going to work this time," he muttered to himself. "Time for plan Alpha." A few confident clicks of his mouse, and a screen showing Yumi's face popped up as he called his best friend's cell phone. "Yumi?" he said questioningly when the dial tone stopped ringing. After she confirmed it was in fact she, Jeremy barreled on in excitement. "Yumi, it's me. Hi. Listen, I just launched plan Alpha. My five dry runs have all worked!"

Yumi stifled the excited shiver that tried to sneak its way up her spine; best not to get her hopes up. "Alright," she responded, staring at her uncontrollable grin in the bathroom mirror at her house. "Tomorrow, I'll talk to my parents."

"That's great," Jeremy squeaked, his knees knocking together in excitement. "I'll tell the twins and Ulrich." The two young teenagers said their farewells and disconnected the line. Jeremy pushed back his rolling computer chair with glee, spun around in excitement , before squashing his bubbly happiness down and taming it. He needed his rest; tomorrow was a _big_ day. He floated in his dreams contently, dreaming of holding _her,_ touching _her,_ finally seeing _her_ in the flesh…

"Uh, Mom and Dad, can I talk to you for a second?" Yumi asked tentatively the following morning. "It's about my pen pal," Yumi continued carefully, ensuring she didn't push too fast, or drag on too slow. "You haven't changed your mind about her living here for awhile, have you?"

Yumi's father swallowed the mouthful of noodle and raised his eyebrow at his eldest child. "No, but tell us a little bit about her, Yumi!" Her father frowned, setting down his chopsticks. "We don't even know her name."

"Aelita." Yumi stuttered nervously.

"Aelita _what?_ " Her mother prodded, crossing her thin arms sternly.

"It's Aelita…Lyoko!" She blurted, mentally reaching for any word to pose as a sir name.

"Is she Japanese?" Her father inquired, following his wife's suit and crossing his arms.

"well, yes!" Yumi nodded vigorously, thinking that she would tell them anything they wanted to hear.

"What do her parents do, dear?" her mother drawled next, basking in the early morning sunshine that was peeking through the kitchen drapes.

"They, uh, work with….computers," she finished weakly. Maybe she should've worked a little more on the back story before bringing this up… Her parents looked at each other, sending secret parent messages with their pupils.

"Well," her father sighed, pushing back his chair and standing slowly, "alright then. She's welcome to stay with us." Yumi felt spirit fly; everything was finally in order!

"That's fantastic!" she cheered, throwing her arms around her father's neck. "I adore you!" She suddenly turned about and smothered her mother in a tight hug as well. "You won't regret it, she's really _so_ nice! Bye now, see you tonight!" With that, she ran down the hall, snatched her black backpack from the hallway hook, and sprinted up the sidewalk, dying to tell the others.

Meanwhile, in the lobby directly outside of the staff offices, Odd, Jade, and Ulrich smacked energetic high fives; after some fudgery and forgery, they had crafted Aelita a false birth certificate, health record, and even glowing letters of recommendation from the Della Robbia parents. Added in with some puppy eyes, and many "yes, sir's", the three had convinced Delmas to admit Aelita into the academy.

"Alright, we did it!" Jade grinned, squeezing Ulrich in a tight hug.

"Great job," Ulrich cheered, pounding Jade's back enthusiastically and bumping fists with Odd. The trio began to jog outside when Jim's large form blocked their way.

"Alright, what are you three up to, huh?" he interrogated. "You know this building is off limits to wandering students, it's only eight in the morning!"

"We had an appointment with the principal, Jim," Ulrich soothed coolly.

"About our cousin attending school here," Jade chimed, her usually quiet and reserved aura temporarily blanketed with the joy of the good news.

"What a lame excuse," Jim chortled, shaking his head. "What do you think I am, an idiot?"

" _Wellllll,_ " Odd dragged on, scratching his head with a smirk. He received a sharp elbow on both sides of his ribs, one from Ulrich, and one from his sister, but Jim's smirk had already morphed into a scowl.

"Quiet!" he barked, pushing his stubbly face closer to the three student's. "And you think I'm not onto you three's pranks with Jeremy and Yumi. You disappear into the park, like some sorta' magic, you plot in your rooms!

"Hey, it's not a crime," Odd quipped. Jade smacked him upside the head, glowering at him to be quiet.

"Well," Jim grunted, straightening, "maybe not. Now you listen up! One of these days, I'm gonna' find out what the five of you are hiding! Now, get outta' here!" Without him asking twice, the three juveniles pushing and shoved each other out the front door, not even his threats dampening their moods.

"You know what I think?" Ulrich said, sobering up as the crisp morning air filled his lungs. "We'd better be careful about Jim. If he keeps playing detective, he's going to find our secret passage."

"Oh, lighten up! Today's too great a day to be so stern, Stern!" Odd laughed, punching his best friend on the shoulder. Jade opened her mouth to command her idiotic sibling to cut it out, her somberness restored, but Yumi's voice cut her off, calling out to them. "Look! Here comes more good news!" Odd sang, running to meet Yumi halfway.

"Great news; my parents said okay!" Yumi said, a toothy grin splitting her face.

"So did the principal," Ulrich smiled. "Jade, that was a pretty good letter you faked from your parents!" Jade took a dramatic bow silently, glowing in his praise. Yumi clapped and laughed, calling for an encore, when Ulrich felt his phone vibrate and pulled it out of his pocket. "Jeremy, what's up?" he said into the receiver. The others froze and waited to hear what was happening. "Okay, be right there," Ulirch nodded, before pushing the phone back into his pocket. "Come on, to Einstein's room!" he grinned. The four dashed rowdily across campus, clamored the stairs loudly, and busted into Jeremy's room boisterously. They instantly quieted, seeing Jeremy bent over his keyboard, typing diligently. Jade closed the door carefully and the others crowded around the monitor, watching codes they didn't understand pop up and disappear as Jeremy keyed them in.

"That's it!" Jeremy suddenly shouted, standing bolt upright on his feet suddenly, the chair smashing into Odd's shins. "We've got it this time!" Odd hobbled about, howling obnoxiously in pain, but the others ignored him, focused on their bespeckled friend. "It works! It works! The materialization program for Aelita works!" Odd quieted his screeching and limped back to the others, instantly forgetting his pain. "I can hardly believe it," Jeremy muttered to himself, knowing that at long last, he would officially meet the pink haired girl of his dreams. The Lyoko Warriors smothered their in-house genius with a group hug, cheering and whooping with elation.

When they all were finally able to funnel their reactions into a jar and lid it shut, they contacted Aelita. She smiled at them sweetly, happy to see all her friends at once. When Jeremy mentioned he had good news, Aelita raised her eyebrow with a grin. "Yeah? Well, tell me what it is!" she sang, happy to see her friends so happy. After getting nods of encouragement from Yumi and Jade, and encouraging pats from Ulrich and Odd, Jeremy took a steadying breath and began.

"Aelita, I don't know how to tell you this, but believe it or not…we're waiting for you here." Aelita's eyes widened, and Jade shuffled her feet, eager to run, fly, swim out of the stuffy dorm room and get to the factory so they could materialize her.

"Really?" Aelita shrieked, her sudden shout cracking out the speakers with screeching feedback.

"REALLY!" the five earthbound humans screamed back, their cheer unabashed by the ringing in their ears.

"The materialization is gonna' work?" Aelita demanded, disbelief and hope thickening her high pitched voice.

"Yupp!" Jeremy nodded enthusiastically. "And it's all on this CD! I can tell you, it was really complicated, defragmenting the inertial matrix wasn't enough, so I had to start to recompile all of the DNA correlation-"

"Time out," Odd called, shaking his head with an uncontrollable smile. Jeremy looked around, and all his friends were glaring at him, daring him to continue the lengthy explanation , and stall the homecoming of their pal.

"Too make a long story short," Jeremy sighed, digressing, "it works."

"Oh Jeremy, that's so great! I-I can't believe it's true!" Aelita swooned, her cheeks stinging from the stretching they had to do to accommodate her grin.

"Better get used to it fast," Odd winked at her. "Because it's time to take the big jump!"

"And then it's bye bye X.A.N.A," Jade smirked, excited.

"Hold on!" Jeremy said, shaking his head. "It's not that simple! First, I've gotta' set up the program in the Super Calculator. Next, Aelita will have to get to the Passage Tower in the Forest region. Finally, that's where she is going to get devirtualized." He took a shaky breath, and then his words finished in a rush. "Soon, she'll be in the flesh for the first time inside one of the scanners!"

"In that case," Aelita squealed, wiggling impatiently on the screen, "I'm off to the Forest right now!"

"Okay, we'll go to class in the mean time," Jeremy nodded.

"And afterwards, the factory," Ulrich nodded, a grin on his face.

"I'll see you later, my friends," Aelita sang, winking at the other five secretively.

"We'll be six for dinner tonight," Yumi nodded, smiling. Aelita smiled, then her profile disappeared from the computer screen, their communication terminated. "Let's get going," Yumi continued. The five students ran from Belpois's room, eager to not be caught in the dormitory when it was off limits during class hours. They dashed to the staircase.

"Ah ha!" Jim shouted, leaping from around the blind corner and blocking their way. Jeremy skidded to a halt, and Yumi slammed into his back, Jade into Yumi's, Ulrich into Jade's, and Odd into Ulirch's in a giant guilty train wreck.

"What's wrong?" Jim grinned. "Up to no good again, aren't ya'?"

"No, we were just studying together," Odd smiled, disentangling himself from his friends.

"Pfft! My foot! I've had enough of your lies, you hear?" Jim hissed, crouching down to the five student's level. "We're gonna' stay right here, until you guys tell me the truth!"

"JIM!" Jim stiffened and his victorious grin slackened when the stern, angry voice of the principal sounded off behind him. "What is going on here?" Delmas demanded.

"I'm glad you're here, sir!" Jim nodded, turning to his superior. "I don't know what's going on, but these five little devils are up to no good and I intend to find out what it is!"

"Yes, Jim," Delmas sighed, rubbing his forehead in irritation. "Another one of your absurd stories about secret plots and passages?" An awkward silence rang in the hall.

"What do you mean, absurd?" Jim finally coughed, looking around sheepishly.

"You heard me," the principal growled. "Absurd, Jim!" Jim stuttered, trying to regain his confidence, but fell silent when the principal wagged his finger angrily in his face. "Now, listen," Delmas hissed. "Your paranoid behavior and your one track mind concerning these children are getting on my nerves. You're a physical education teacher, not a detective." With that, Delmas turned on his heel and strode out of the hallway, his heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

The five Lyoko Warriors shuffled their feet awkwardly, wishing to be anywhere else in the world as Jim's hand clenched and relaxed out of fists. "What are you wait for?" Jim barked loudly, causing Jade and Jeremy to jump in surprise. "You have class right now, so get going!" With a squeak, Jeremy jumped around the burly man, and the others followed suit, flying down the staircase and out into the glimmering sunshine. They ran their separate ways, trying not to be late, waving to Yumi as they broke off.

"Animals live in the land, air and sea regions," droned Ms. Hertz. "This is due to their varied respiratory organs, which obviously affects…" as the science teacher continued her lecture, Odd elbowed his sister, calling her attention away from the lesson.

"It won't be long now," he whispered, grinning over at his twin. Jade smiled, and the two blonde children leaned over, glancing at the desk directly to the right of them, where Jeremy and Ulrich sat. Ulrich shot the pair a thumbs up, and Jeremy offered a toothy smile before returning to his diligent notes.

Class dragged on, and Ulrich tapped his foot impatiently, staring down the clock, begging time to speed up. By suppertime, one of his best friends in the whole universe would be on earth for the first time, and all that divided him from that moment was time. Couldn't move along a little faster?

Jeremy's laptop bad beeped quietly from the floor. His brow furrowed as he pulled it sneakily onto his lap, opening it ever so slightly as to see the monitor. In the center of the screen, a bold red exclamation point flashed quickly. "We gotta' go," Jeremy mouthed across the aisle to the twins, who were watching him seriously. Jeremy turned the laptop so Ulrich beside him could see the screen. When the serious boy nodded, Jeremy slipped the laptop back into its carrier on the floor.

Ms. Hertz pointed at Jeremy and asked a question that none of the four friends really heard. Jeremy blurted an answer that he knew to be wrong, but didn't care. He just needed to get out of this classroom immediately. The other students roared in laughter at his incorrect response, and usually, Odd would've joined in, but not this time. This time, more important matters were at hand.

The four dashed out of the classroom the moment the bell rang, pushing and shoving the other students aside, weaving and dodging through the crowd. "Someone call Yumi!" Odd called back to the others as he slipped through a pair of students, ignoring their angry shouts. "She's in Italian right now, that doesn't get out for another half hour!" Ulrich yanked out his phone, quickly explained the situation to their upper classman friend, before shoving it back into his pocket.

The four dashed out of the science building, their lungs heaving for air as they continued in their headlong rush. Soon, pavement turned to dirt beneath their sneakers as they entered the shadowy sanctuary of the forest. Yumi came crashing through the brush unexpectedly and banked alongside her friends, falling in line.

"Mind telling me what's going on in detail?" she puffed, glancing over at the others.

"X.A.N.A's at it again," Ulrich gasped, willing his feet to move faster.

"He knows the end is near," Jade continued, irritatingly batting her long bangs behind her ear so she could see easily with both eyes.

"He's not going down without a fight," Odd nodded, tripping a little on a tree root and throwing himself forward faster at an even more reckless pace. They all skidded to a halt beside the manhole, and each peered around, trying to quiet their breath so it wasn't so conspicuous. When Jeremy finally nodded, Jade muscled open the heavy lead lid, and the others began clamoring down.

"Hold on," Jade suddenly said. The others froze, listening intently.

"What?" Ulrich demanded in a whisper, hating the delay.

"I thought I heard…never mind." They all snuck down into the sewers. Jim, who had followed them from the main hub of campus, snooped around, searching for where the five delinquents had gone. He had almost caught them.

The wheeled through the stinky sewers quickly, not giving their bodies a moment to rest. When they finally reached the factory, the elevator couldn't descend fast enough. The moment the doors opened, Jeremy squeezed through the small slit, not even waiting for them to open fully. He threw himself over the armrest of the master chair and snatched his earpiece off the dashboard. "Aelita! Aelita, can you hear me?"

"Took you long enough!" Aelita responded in a rare moment of sass. "I'm at the Passage Tower, but three Bloks won't let me even get close!"

"Okay, I've got you localized," Jeremy said, finally righting himself into the elevated chair. "Don't move, and don't worry. Help is on the way."

"I believe that's our cue," Jade smiled at Jeremy before rushing back into the elevator, the other three in tow. They all walked into the bright scanner room, and Odd offered to be virtualized last as the other three approached the three scanners. "I'll be sending you to the Forest region, a little south of where Aelita is," Jeremy informed from above as the three walked calmly into the cylinders. Ulrich took a deep breath as the light inside the scanner intensified, and he felt his spiky hair begin to be buffeted. He gulped and tried to focus on keeping his breathing steady as he felt his particles disconnect and float above him and into the data cords above. One of his breaths caught in his throat, and it was held as his chest, neck, and eventually his skull as defragmented and transferred through the flashing red virtualization tubes.

He felt himself synthesize, and expertly landed on the green Forest floor. To his right, both the girls landed easily as well. They waited about anxiously, kicking at the dirt while Odd was vitualized. When he finally fell from the sky, Yumi grabbed him by his wrist and dragged him into a run. They threw their bodies forward, not wanting Aelita to be alone for a second longer than necessary.

"Alright, Jeremy, we're here!" Ulrich called up as they slowed to a stop beside their friend.

"That's great, guys," Jeremy encouraged from above. "Get ready, I'm launching the materialization program immediately." The Warriors smiled at each other, excited to finally have Aelita on earth, when a jarring, off tune voice sounded around them obnoxiously. Embarrassment colored Odd's face as he covered it with a purple paw.

 _Break, break, break dance! Break, break, break dance. Break, break, break dance! Here we gOOooOOoOo!_ "What in the world?' Aelita said, crinkling her nose in distaste.

"Problem, Jeremy?" Yumi mused, a raised, pencil thin eyebrow replacing her smile.

"I grabbed the wrong CD off my desk!" Jeremy wailed from across the waves. "I grabbed Odd's stupid music video instead!" _Break, break, break dance! Break, break, break dance!_

"Geez, please turn that crap off!' Jade moaned, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance with her sharp claws.

"Okay, okay!" Jeremy ejected the CD and groaned. "I've got to go back to the dorms," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Okay, well hurry," Yumi sighed, shaking her head. Jeremy removed his earpiece and ran from the computer room. When the music stopped, Odd peeked out from between his fingers shyly.

"You made a video?" Ulrich scoffed.

"Yeah, he made a video," Jade hissed, smacking the back of Odd's head with her soft paw.

"It's pretty good!" Odd objected, glaring at his sister and rubbing the back of his skull.

"Not from the sounds of it," Aelita muttered, rolling her eyes.

"What's the title?" Ulrich asked curiously.

"No, don't, he'll—" Jade sputtered.

"Break, break, break dance!" Odd sang, his voice just as awful as it was on the video.

"Please, just stop," Yumi sighed, shaking her head. "That's enough fooling around, we've got some cleaning up to do!" Odd and Ulrich snapped their mouths shut, cutting off their giggles.

"Sir, yes sir!" They said in unison. Jade rolled her eyes, and smirked over at their leader.

"Boys," she snipped at Yumi, who nodded in agreement. The Warriors ran out from behind their cover then and charged the unsuspecting monsters. They whirled on their axis in surprise before they shot their lasers. Ulirch, Jade and Yumi dodged them and continued their press forward.

Yumi leapt into the air and threw her dual fans at the same moment Odd dove forward and shot a volley of Arrows before returning to his four legged sprint. Two Bloks fell to their expert offensive. "Super Sprint!" Ulrich dashed forward and sliced the final Blok in half and zipped away so the explosion didn't harm him.

Yumi landed gracefully and looked around, pleased with her teams work. "This is too easy," Jade yawned, pretending to examine her claws.

"Aelita, the passage is clear, you can go," Yumi called back. Aelita peaked out from behind the tree she was cowering behind before stepping out and beginning to jog to her friends.

"Wow, just think," Jade daydreamed aloud, "this could be the last Tower." The other Warriors turned and examined the Tower's bulbous bottom critically, nostalgia and relief washing across their expressions.

"Oh, you MISERABLE LITTLE BRAT!" Jim's words echoed down the dormitory hallway as Jeremy sped away, trying to flee. Jim had been waiting for him outside his dorm room door, and was now in hot pursuit. The CD poked against Jeremy's thigh from inside his pocket as he ran, spurring him faster. "Jeremy, stop! That's an order! Wait till I get my hands on you…" The shouts from behind caused Jeremy to turn and see how close Jim was to him as he took the stairs down two at a time. His ankle twisted and rolled, and with a scream, Jeremy fell down the remainder of flight. He hopped to his feet and kept sprinting, each pounding step on his left foot sending immense pain up his calf. He winced and whimpered as the pain intensified with the continued use of his feet. _For Aelita,_ he thought, over and over in his head, the only thing that could keep him moving.

As his foot landed heavily as he jumped down the three steps from the dormitory's front doors to the dirt path below, his leg gave out beneath him. With a cry, he crashed onto the ground, his glasses flying away. "Jeremy!" A nameless student, one who's name Jeremy couldn't think of through the pain, cradled his head. "Jeremy, are you alright?"

"Ah, my ankle!" Jeremy screeched, grasping the swollen joint with clenched eyes.

"Jeremy, hold on," the boy who was cradling him cooed. "We'll get you to the infirmary."

"Jim, what are you, crazy?" A nearby female voice shrieked. "This is all your fault!"

Back on Lyoko, the Warriors grew worried; forty five minutes had past, and Einstein still hadn't returned. "I hope he's okay… forty five minutes is a long time to pick up a CD," Aelita whimpered, her brain assuming the worst. As she fretted over her crush's well being, the other's comforted her, reassuring her that everything was all right.

"Does it still hurt?" inquired Yolanda, the school health practitioner.

"No, no, it's fine now," Jeremy blurted quickly, trying to shake loose her grip on his calf as she wrapped his ankle. "I can walk now, I'm sure of it! Thanks!"

"Oh, you silly thing!" Yolanda giggled cheerily, the weight of the situation unbeknownst to her. "The last thing you need to do is walk!" She patted his knee comfortingly. "You'll have to wait _at least_ a week before putting that foot on the ground."

"A week?" Jeremy gasped, his breath speeding to a panicky rate.

"And if you complain, I won't give you crutches to get around with," she sang, tapping his nose endearingly as she laughed. Her laugh suddenly was cut short; outside, in the hall, voices could be easily heard.

"Jim! This time, you've gone too far! Don't say I didn't warn you." Delmas' voice was quiet, but seethed with rage. Yolanda's smooth, young brow furrowed with worry. "This time, your paranoia has caused an accident! I'm sorry, but I can't overlook this…I'm going to have to let you go." Silence filled the nurses room as the clicking of the principal's heels faded away.

"Oh, you don't need to listen to such things!" Yolanda said loudly, trying hard to make her giggle sound natural. As her forced laughter echoed off the walls, she shut the door into the hallway. She then picked up the extra wrapping she had used on his leg and replaced it in the medicine cabinet.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" Jeremy asked, trying to hide the hope in his voice.

"Sorry, but I insist you stay off your feet," Yolanda sighed, narrowing her eyes at his insistence. "I'll go and get you a bed pan." She clicked out of the main room and left for one of the medical supply closets. Jim walked in a moment after the nurse left, smiling apologetically.

"Jeremy, listen," Jim sighed, itching the back of his head. "I wanted to say I'm sorry. I was just…so sure you guys were up to something, I guess I got carried away a little." He walked away from Jeremy's bedside and strode over to the large, shimmering windows that lit the room. "I deserve to get fired," Jim sighed shamefully, clasping his hands behind his back. "I went a little crazy 'cause I thought you and your friends had a lot of secrets that you were hiding." He turned away from the window, and looked back at Jeremy, sincerity wetting his eyes. "Anyway…" Jim turned around with a heavy sigh and began walking out the door. "I'll miss you guys." Jim's head hung low, and he reminisced on all the memories with the troublesome pack. When he caught Jeremy and Ulrich spray painting his face on a brick wall. Ulrich kicking his first perfect field goal in football. Odd "accidently" slamming tennis balls into his back. Jade sticking her tongue out at him after he gave her detention, never losing her edge. He acted tough because it was his job to uphold the rules, but these kids were the closest to a family he'd had in a long, long time.

"Hold on a second, Jim," Jeremy called out, halting the teacher. "You're… not as crazy as you think. My friends and I, we do have a secret.

"That means I was right, after all!" Jim declared, dashing back across the room and kneeling by Jeremy's bed. "Well then, let's hear it!" he prodded.

"Look, Jim," Jeremy said. "If you help me, I'll tell the principal everything! You'll be off the hook, and he's bound to give you your job back!"

"Great," Jim sighed, relieved. "Shake on it!" Jim extended his open palm. Jeremy looked at Jim's hand with mixed emotions; he knew he was lying to Jim, and that he wouldn't remember anything after the Return to the Past, but at least he could get back to the lab. They shook hands, and Jim broke into a wide smile.

Jim scooped up the frail boy at his instruction, and leapt out of the wide windows with him. "There, head to the park!" Jim ran into the shelter of the tree line. "Over there, behind that oak tree!" Jim swerved around the large trunk. "Stop!" Jim skidded to a halt suddenly. Jim looked back dubiously at the young man on his back. "In front of you," Jeremy winked. Jim's eyes found the man hole, and he approached it gleefully.

"I was right, I was right!" Jim said to himself happily. When they finally reached the computer room, Jim's jaw was slackened; the whole trip to the factory, Jeremy had filled Jim in on everything Lyoko related, but he didn't believe the student till he saw the blue room himself. "Who would've believed it," he whispered in awe. Jeremy hobbled with Jim's help over to the computer and finally placed the earpiece in his ear.

"Aelita? Aelita, is everything okay?" Aelita sighed with relief, the tension in her shoulders relaxing a little.

"Jeremy! At last! What happened to you?"

"It's a long story; too long. But, I've got the program!" Jeremy scratched his head as he inserted the disk. He looked back at Jim, who stood behind him, and gave in a wink. "Now, let's cross our fingers and hope this works okay," he said. Jim gave him a confused look, but Jeremy proceeded without explaining what he was referring to. "Launching!" He announced proudly.

"Jeremy, about time!" Ulrich hissed, rolling to the side. While Jeremy had been gone, Megatanks had begun to assault the Tower. The four Warriors had exited the Tower's safety to defend it.

"Sorry, guys! But I'm here now," Jeremy's voice crackled from above.

"Follow me, Odd," Yumi called. She rushed the Megatank head on. It shot a deadly Laser at her, but using her body as a human shield, she absorbed the damage and was immediately devirtualized. In the split second of vulnerability after it's attack, Odd shot a perfectly aimed Laser Arrow, that buried itself into the Megatank's Eye. Odd tried to rush away quickly, but the shockwave of the explosion caught him, and he followed Yumi back to earth.

Ulrich ran up beside Jade, and together they approached the last Megatank. "Alright, guys, it's up to you," Jeremy groaned, seeing the pair up of one Megatank and two Warriors.

"Come on, kiddos, get 'em! Show this X.A.N.A thing who's the boss!" Jim cheered, rooting on his pupils. Jeremy grinned back at Jim; it was kind've nice, getting some recognition after being unsung heroes for so long. The elevator doors slid open, and Yumi and Odd dashed into the room.

"Jeremy, Ulrich and Jade…" he trailed off as he saw Jim pumping his fist by the monitors.

" _Jim_?" Yumi said incredulously.

"Yeah, Jim," Jeremy nodded with a smile. "Don't worry, he's one of the gang now!"

"Jim!" Jade cried from Lyoko. "You're joking!" She rolled out of a Laser just in the nick of time.

"Jade, focus! We can figure out what's going on back at earth later!" Ulrich shouted. Ulrich Triangulated around the Megatank, and it spun in confusion. It shot out one of Ulrich's duos, and while it was distracted, Jade took aim.

"Laser Arrow!" She called, shooting two darts. Both hit the monster's Eye, one after the other. It exploded, and Jade smirked with accomplishment.

"Nice job, Jade!" Ulrich smiled. "That was-"

"Guys, look out!" Jeremy called from above. A third Megatank rolled in and began firing at the Tower. The structure absorbed the damage and groaned, wobbling in protest.

"Jeremy," Aelita called from inside the Tower, "it won't hold for much longer!"

"Guys, protect the Tower!" Jeremy's high pitched squeal called from above. The Megatank shot a second laser. Jade scaled a tree, and launched herself across the void in between her and the tank. She collided full body into its side; the force was enough to skew the laser, and shot missed the Tower by inches. The Megatank rolled over her, crushing her and devirtualizing her instantly.

It twisted back to the Tower, and Ulrich stepped in its way, raising his blade. The laser caught the metal, heating it red hot, as the force pushed him back a few feet. He could feel his energy and life points depleting, he knew he couldn't keep this up. "Einstein, would ya' hurry?" he shouted.

"Hold on, Ulrich, just a few more seconds!" Jeremy begged from his chair, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "I'm almost ready, Aelita, get into position in the Tower." Aelita stood dead center on the platform, her blood rushing with hope. "Ready to take the big jump?" Jeremy asked. When Aelita said she was, Jeremy took a long, deep breath.

"Jeremy, hurry!" Ulrich screamed.

"Code: Earth," Jeremy said, pressing the enter button. Ulrich screamed as his sword broke from the pressure and the laser cut him in two, sending him back to the scanner. Aelita floated off the platform, and the data screens pasting the inside of the Tower swooped in around her, blocking her vision and forming a glowing, white cocoon about her.

"Let's go!" Jim shouted in excitement, running to the elevator. The other's followed and bounced with suspense as they lowered to the scanner room. Jade and Ulrich already waited with bated breath, holding each other's hand tightly. The other's joined, everyone connected by a held hand, a palm on the shoulder, something to keep each other on their feet. When the scanner doors parted, and the dust parted, she was curled up on the floor.

Everything about her was just as Jeremy imagined; she had pink, short hair, and her face was just as angelic in real life as it was on the screen. "She's finally here," Yumi whispered. Aelita's eyes squeezed a little tighter at hearing Yumi's voice before popping open as she lifted her head. Jeremy felt his throat tighten with emotion as he smiled down at her. He fell to one knee, and held out his hand to help her from the floor.

"Welcome to Earth," he grinned. The others roared with approval, dancing about with joy; their little rag tag family was finally complete.


	8. A Great Day

**To the Guest reviewer who left the most recent review: No, I'm sorry, Jim isn't capable of remembering the events of the past chapter. Only those who go to Lyoko can recall what happened prior to the Return to the Past's. In a early episode, it is explained that Jeremy doesn't even remember what happens before the Return to the Past's, and the rest of the team has to fill him in each time. I'm sorry!**

 **I'm getting into the second season now, and here, the Warriors have found Sector Five and their vehicles have been programmed. For Jade's vehicle, I've chosen to give her a sailboard. For those unfamiliar, it is essentially a surfboard, with a small sail attached to it, making it basically a little boat you stand on. Search for it on Google if you don't know what it is. Jade's Draftboard, as I've dubbed it, has a purple board like Odd's Hoverboard, and it's sail is neon green, like her outfit and hair. Adorning the sail is a purple X.A.N.A Eye, like on his monsters, with a large black "X" over it.**

Aelita poked and prodded the Sector Five interface, digging into the digital troves of knowledge and data. Her four escorts stood around her, their heads on a swivel, searching the blue arena for movement.

"What about the Mantas?" Jeremy asked from above. "How we doing, see any of them yet?"

"None yet," Odd said, his tail flicking in agitation. Across the void from the narrow platform to the sector's inner wall, several bumps rose.

"Scratch that," Yumi sighed, pulling out her fans.

"Looks like their gonna' hatch real soon," Ulrich grumbled, tightening his grip on his sword.

"Judging by the size of the nest," Odd mused, appraising the quickly forming tumors, "We're gonna' have some big bouncy babies!" Jeremy's knee bounced in his master's chair, anxious for the five to get out of dodge.

"Alright, Aelita, that's enough for now, stop using the interface so I can work on it on this side," Jeremy gulped, watching the visual of the growing Manta eggs.

"Just a little longer, Jeremy," Aelita breathed, her eyes soaking in the information she was smuggling off the screen. "We've never been able to access this much data!" Jeremy popped his knuckles, taking a deep breath.

"You know I can't do anything here on earth while you're using the interface," Jeremy said. "Let me take over now, okay?" Aelita continued swiping data from the screen, her eyes narrowed in stubbornness.

"Aelita, listen," Odd cooed, seeing that she wasn't listening to Einstein back on earth, "I don't want to rush you but, uh…" Odd pointed across the empty air, where a shimmering noise was emitted as the Mantas finally broke through the wall, hatching into four monsters.

"Geez," Jade scoffed as they flew closer. "Most big bouncing babies are cute, but these look like nightmares. Jeremy, they're here."

"Okay," Jeremy said from above. "I've got things under control! Your vehicles are coming right up." Odd backflipped onto his Overboard when it materialized.

"Here we go!" he chanted, zipping forward and leading the others into the battle.

"Show off!" Jade called, leaning backwards with her Draftboard and flying by her selected Manta. The monsters shot several lasers at Aelita, who danced around them carefully on the thin walkway. Yumi about faced and snatched her friend off of the tightrope thin platform and zoomed off with her, trying to outfly the monsters. The other Warriors fell in line alongside her, flanking her sides.

"Just babies, and look at them already," Odd sighed with mock adoration, leaning out of the way of a few lasers that were shot after him.

"What do you think they are, male or female?" Ulrich laughed, barrel rolling free from another volley of lasers.

"Considering their tempers, they gotta' be girls, right?" Odd smirked. "Hey!" Odd shouted in surprise, leaning back just in time so that Jade's Laser Arrow didn't slam into his face.

"Yeah, we girls have got tempers," she growled, "and you'd do your best to mind it!"

"Oh, please!" Ulrich groaned. "I'll show these girls how tough I am, and what it means to be a guy!" He whipped around his Overbike and charged the Mantas head on, brandishing his sword with a battle cry. The Mantas released a volley of Lasers, and done caught his bike. "Wh…Whoa!" Ulrich's bike devirtualized underneath him and he plummeted through the virtual air. Just before he slammed into the Celestial Dome's deadly data wall, Jade snuck in between him and complete deletion, catching his stomach on her Draftboard.

"You…you couldn't have…caught me earlier?" Ulrich complained, wheezing as he tried to regain his breath.

"I could've, but I chose not to; you deserved it," Jade smirked. "So what does it mean to be a boy? Cocky and arrogant?" Ulrich glared at her from where he was slung over her board behind her, but didn't waste his suddenly sacred breaths as he regained them. "Geez, would ya' stand up already?" Jade groaned. "You're throwing the weight off of my board!"

"Nice save, Jade!" Jeremy encouraged from above, relieved that Ulrich had been caught. "The tunnel is open, the Mantas shouldn't follow you inside." The four vehicles made a sharp turn and escaped into the Ice sector, and Ulrich could hear the Mantas' angry and frustrated screams as the heroes fled the battlefield.

Jeremy materialized his friends and began downloading the pirated information Aelita had gotten for him. "There you go," Jeremy nodded, pleased. "The data analysis is running," he said as the elevator door sighed open.

"Great," Odd cheered, walking out of the elevator first. "And… what does that mean, exactly?"

"With all the data we've been able to uncover," Jeremy explained, holding a studious finger in the air, "I might be able to find an antivirus."

"You mean," Ulrich pondered, "pretty soon we'll be able to shut down the Supercomputer?" Ulrich glanced over at his pink haired friend. A few weeks ago, Aelita had been materialized for the first time, taking her first breath of Earth's air. However, they quickly found out that X.A.N.A had planted a virus inside of her, and if they shut down Lyoko without finding a cure, Aelita would perish as well.

"Exactly!" Jeremy applauded, impressed by Ulrich's deduction. "And if it works, Aelita will no longer be tied to X.A.N.A."

"Oh, shoot, what are we going to do with our free time?" Odd mused, pulling his gelled hair back into pointy perfection.

"You might study a little more," Yumi snorted, leaning against Jermey's chair with a smirk. "You could learn something for once." Odd stuck his tongue out at his older friend, and Jade laughed at Yumi's snide remark. With her spare time, she could start painting again; she barely had any time to paint since she had transferred to Kadic.

"Geez, look at the time!" Jeremy gasped, shoving his phone back into his pocket. "We better head back to our dorms if we don't want to get caught." The Warriors walked back briskly to the campus, chattering lively and optimistically. In the park, Yumi waved briefly before taking off to her home. The others stuck close to the shadows stealthily, slipping into the dormitory silently. Each of the kids waved sleepily to each other before going to their own rooms, all save for Jeremy, who chivalrously walked Aelita to her dorm door.

Aelita opened her door, slowly, a thoughtful look on her face, before turning to Jeremy, her eyes filled with hope. "Jeremy, do you really think your calculations will lead to something?" Jeremy sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"We can never be one hundred percent sure," Jeremy said cautiously, shaking his head sadly, "but… I think so." Aelita tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling before squeezing her eyes shut in desperate prayer.

"I can't believe that soon I'll be…well, _really_ real," she whispered, for Belpois ears alone.

"Well, to me," Jeremy smiled, leaning in to take her hand comfortingly, "you already are. _Very_ real." He squeezed her hand to emphasize his words. Aelita blushed; he could be so dreadfully awkward sometimes, but when it was just the two of them, he knew just what to say. "I mean it!" Jeremy smiled, seeing her roll her eyes. "And besides, to everyone else? You're Aelita Stones, Odd's cousin." Aelita frowned and took her hand back from Jeremy's.

"You know very well that isn't true," Aelita whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. "I don't want to live this life of lies anymore."

"But a lie that everyone believes isn't really a lie anymore," Jeremy argued. Aelita scoffed and shot him a judgmental look. "Oh, come on, Aelita," Jeremy smiled. "Tomorrow's gonna' be a great day! You'll see….Goodnight." The two preteens said goodnight to each other, and Jeremy skipped down the hallway happily, whistling a joyous toon, unaware that someone had recorded the entire conversation.

Yumi fell out of bed with a cry of surprise when her alarm clock screeched at her the following morning at 6:30. She slammed the off button and took a boiling hot shower to wake her up. When she was finally ready for the day, she jogged to the kitchen where a bowl of noodles was set out for her. Her father read the newspaper, his shoulders tense, when she began eating, saying a quick morning greeting.

Yumi spilled a little broth on her black turtle neck when her father's balled fist slammed onto the table top. She lowered her bowl, anxiety suddenly taking hold of her. "I can't help but wonder what a girl your age could possibly be doing out at such a late hour!" Yumi set the bowl down with trembling hands, trying to gulp down her fear, the way she wished she could've gulped down her breakfast five seconds ago, but alas, her appetite was gone. She had thought he had been asleep when she had snuck in last night. "There's a boy behind this," her father continued angrily. "Tell me his name!"

Yumi froze, and stuttered out Ulrich's name before dashing from the house, her father's shouts following after her. The moment her friends saw her on campus a few minutes later, they knew something was wrong.

"What happened?" Jeremy asked, his brow furrowed in concern. Yumi told her friends about her morning, and looked at Ulrich apologetically.

"I couldn't very well tell him what I was doing out late last night, let alone that there were three boys involved, not one," Yumi sighed, tugging her hair into straight perfection.

"Why couldn't you just make up a story?" Ulrich grumbled, irritated at taking the face. He pressed his back to the concrete wall and slid down it, sitting against it for support. "I do it all the time with my parents." Yumi shook her head and rested her back on the wall, staring at the dirt beneath her boots.

"I'm sick of lying," she hissed. "I'd love to be able to tell them everything, like I used to." Her boots kicked a pebble away roughly.

"Don't worry, Yumi," Jeremy sang, giving a supportive rub on his shoulder. "Soon you won't have to lie anymore."

"Come on," Jade offered quietly. "Cheer up! It's going to be a great day, they said so on the radio." She pushed back her bangs a little and smiled a little wider, trying to put more effort into making her friend feel better. Yumi grinned at Jade and Aelita pulled her into a hug. The bell rang, and Aelita looked around with a questioning look.

"Where's Odd?" Aelita asked. Jade rolled her eyes, and began walking to the Science building when the bell rang, ahead of the others.

"I figured that he could run late on his own," Jade called back over her shoulder. The others followed her, and Aelita and Yumi waved to the others as they took up their own routes to class. Ulrich walked into the classroom first, and Jade was about to follow when she was pushed aside. Sissy charged passed her and shoved a demanding finger into Jeremy's thin chest. Jeremy's eyes widened with surprise, and Jade wrestled with her inner demons for a moment, trying to be brave enough to stand by Jeremy's side but… without her brother, she just found the world bigger and scarier. She scurried in after Ulrich, calling his name to whisper what it was that held Jeremy up.

"Jeremy, would you listen to something for me?" Sissy cooed when she was certain Jade and Ulrich were out of ear rang. "You'll see there's not a lot of music," she drawled, pulling a tape recorder from her pink book bag, "but the words are really interesting." She pressed the play button confidently, and as his conversation with Aelita from the previous night replayed for him, Jeremy's face drained of color. The pounding of sneakers approached quickly.

"Hey, Einstein," Odd gasped, skidding to a halt beside his lensed friend. "What are you doing out here in the hall with Cruella Da Vill? The bells gonna' ring…." As Odd comprehended what soundtrack was filling the hall, his words petered out. Jeremy encircled Odd's scrawny wrist with his hand and dragged him into the classroom after the tape had ended and Sissy had made her demands. When Ulrich whispered what was the problem as Ms. Hertz began chalking up the blackboard with symbols, Jeremy offered a quiet and hasty explanation.

"She wants to be a part of our group," Jeremy speedily whispered. "And that we explain everything to her, A to Z. If not, she'll tell her father everything."

"She's even worse than I thought," Odd mused, his chin resting in his hand.

"Nah, I was pretty right on the money with how awful she is," Jade grumbled. The four friends flinched when they were loudly and publicly reprimanded by the teacher, and all of them offered stuttered apologies. Class ended after what felt like eons, and the students rushed outside quicker than usual. Out front, Aelita was waiting patiently for them, wanting to relax with them before classes began again.

When the crowd faded away, and it was only the Lyoko Warriors on the steps, save for Yumi, Jeremy looked at Ulrich over the rim of his glasses. "No matter what happens," Jeremy said sternly, "we can't let Sissy tell Delmas."

"Don't worry, Jeremy," Ulrich groaned, performing some basic fighting forms to calm his tumultuous brain. "I've got an idea." Ulrich sent a text to Sissy, and quickly filled in the others onto his plan before they all rushed off to the gym. Ulrich performed more impressive pencak silat forms and Sissy entered, twitter pated with his offer to tutor her in the art, the other snuck in silently behind her. Jeremy and Odd guarded the door, and Aelita and Jade snuck into the girl's locker room.

After picking to simple lock on the principal's daughter's locker, Jade tore the ugly, pink and furry purse with a grunt. Aelita shoved her hands into the depths and yanked out the bulky tape recorder with a victorious grin. She popped it open, and the cassette holder was…empty. "Jade, it isn't here!"

A scuffled outside the doors sounded off, and Nicolas and Herb threw the doors open with gleeful grins, Herb waving a cassette airily before him. Behind him, Jeremy and Odd were scrambling to their feet, where they must've been blindsided. "Looking for this?" Herb chided with his nasal voice.

"Sissy!" Nicolas called behind him. "You were right, as usual! They were after the cassette!" Aelita threw the tape recorder back into the grotesque purse with a scowl of anger, and she and Jade slipped out quickly from the locker room and back into the main atrium of the gym, shoving past the two boys guarding them. They both stooped and helped the boys back to their feet before returning to Ulrich's side.

"Well, well, well," Sissy purred rudely, "did you really think you were smarter than me?" She gave Jade a rough shove on the shoulder, and Jade stared at the ground fearfully as her older brother step a bit in front of her, guarding her. "You don't know me very well then," Sissy hissed, narrowing her eyes at Odd.

"So, it's time to spill the beans," Sissy said louder, addressing the group again. "Tell me everything you've been up to for as long as I can remember. What's the big conspiracy?" Aelita closed her eyes defensively as Sissy stopped in front of her. "Won't tell me a thing, is that it?" Sissy cooed with false sweetness, stooping to peer up at Aelita's downturned face. "Okay, then you all asked for it! I'm playing this recording for my father!" She snatched the cassette from Herb's hand and strutted out of the gym. The silence that followed was deafening, and into it Odd asked his little sister if she was okay.

"I'm fine, she's just a jerk, I really…" A blinding light cut off Jade's words. The whirring like that of a rewinding tape filled the air, and Jade's thoughts and consciousness was wiped clean, bleaching all possible thought. Jade's radio screamed in her ear, and she threw off her lime green comforter with a start. She…had done this all before.

Jade ran down the stairs in her pj's and threw open her brother's and Ulrich's bedroom door. "What's going on?" she demanded breathlessly as Odd and Ulrich stared at each other with confusion. Both offered her clueless gazes. With a growl, Jade ran upstairs and hastily got ready for the day and met the other Warriors outside.

"I didn't program a Return to the Past," Jeremy immediately said, answering the others.

"Then how do you explain that Tuesday is starting again?" Aelita asked, running her fingers through her pink tufts of hair, trying to calm it; she had brushed it poorly.

"It's most certainly weird," Jeremy said, eyeing Sissy across the way who was staring at him. She had a knowing grin on her face, but little did she know, Jeremy knew her secret too now. "Let's go to the factory after science and check it out." The others agreed as Yumi skidded to a halt next to the others.

"Well, at least we've got a second chance to get Sissy off our backs," Ulrich sighed, turning and walking to Elizabeth. "Sissy?" He called ahead of him, startling the smirk off of her face. "Sissy, oh, I'm so glad to see you!"

"You…you are?" Sissy stuttered, trying to regain her composure. "But…you see, I…uh…wanted to talk to Jeremy."

"Oh, that can wait!" Ulrich smiled, taking a step closer, giving their bodies a little more proximity than usual. "There's something I've wanted to ask you for a long time." Ulrich looked at the ground, playing shy. "But…I just can't bring myself to do it."

"You, uh, you can't…what?" Sissy stuttered, her day dreams being realized.

"Would you… would you come and learn pencak silat with me?" Ulrich asked intimately.

"Why…yes!" Sissy nearly shouted her acceptance, and as she made her way to her next class, the hop in her step was notable. Odd schooled Ms. Hertz by redoing the memorized lesson on the board during science, much to the glee of his classmates, and Ulrich rushed to meet Sissy at the gym afterwards. After dousing her with compliments, he faked a serious face.

"Sissy, can I talk to you about something serious for a minute?" he inquired, dropping his voice. "You see, I'm worried about Jeremy and Aelita. I know you're gonna' laugh, but they've kind've lost it! They think they're…virtual people."

"….What's that?" Sissy asked cluelessly. Ulrich struggled to keep a straight face; this was going to be harder than he originally thought. Back at the factory, the rest of the team sat around Jeremy's master chair, waiting to see what the issue is.

"First, I have to isolate the program that jumps back in time," Jeremy informed the others, focused on the bright screens in front of him.

"Maybe it's X.A.N.A's doing," Aelita murmured, chewing on a finger nail nervously.

"We'll know in a minute," Odd sighed, tapping his foot impatiently. Yumi glanced over to where he was sitting on the floor, a book open in his lap.

"Do you mind telling us what you are doing over there?" she inquired, raising her elegant eyebrow.

"I'm studying," Odd quipped matter-o-factly. "That's what you wanted me to do, wasn't it?"

"Someone get a camera, quick," Jade smirked, eyeing her twin. "This is one for the history books! Odd Della Robbia, the world's greatest slacker, has just started-"

"Look at that!" Jeremy gasped, cutting off the sarcastic comment. "X.A.N.A's managed to take control of the Return to the Past program!" Aelita leaned in much closer, her eyes narrowed in disbelief, asking how it was possible. "In my opinion," Jeremy answered, "by using the data we gathered from Sector 5! Booby trapped data!"

"But why would he do that?" Yumi asked, leaning forward on the headrest of the master chair, not quite understanding the conversation.

"I don't know! In any event, it's starting up again!" Jeremy moaned.

"Stop it!" Jade shouted, her stomach in knots as she leaned over on Jeremy's other side, opposite of Aelita.

"I can't! There's not enough time!" Jeremy said, shaking his head, his fingers already flying across the keys. "We're going back in time in a few seconds, and I've gotta' launch a scan and see if there's an activated tower!" A moment passed, then, "Bingo! An activated tower, X.A.N.A has launched an attack!"

"But what kind?" Odd asked, standing up at the bad news quickly, throwing his textbook onto the floor.

"I don't know," Jeremy groaned, "but we can assume the worst. He didn't take control of the Return to the Past program for the fun of it."

"Brace yourselves, here it comes!" Aelita shouted. A blinding white light erupted unwelcomed about her head, burning the retinas of her eyes and bleaching her thoughts away as time itself halted and reversed back onto itself.

The Warriors ripped through Tuesday for a third time; Yumi even managed to run out of the door so fast, her father didn't get the chance to lecture her. After Jeremy quickly requested Ulrich to forget about distracting Sissy so he could help the others on Lyoko, they all ran to the factory after biology. As Jeremy transferred his friends into the digital plane, he felt his palms grow sweaty with nervousness. At any moment, another Return to the Past could be triggered by the malicious software they were battling, and they'd have to start all over again.

"The activated tower is on the second plateau to the north," Jeremy said into his mouthpiece to the colorful triangles that represented his comrades on the screen. "Sorry, but you're gonna' have to go on foot without any vehicles, I don't have enough computer resources to bring them up."

"No sweat," Ulrich said in the Mountain region, cracking his neck to both sides as he mentally prepared himself for the fight ahead. "It'll be just like the good old days!"

"Come on, let's go," Yumi said, leading her battalion in the direction of their objective. As the group headed off, Jeremy told them to be careful; he was going to regain control of the Return to the Past program, so he wouldn't be able to assist them as effectively from the other side of the computer screen. As they ran, the four Warrior's forming a protective diamond around Aelita in the middle, Odd's cat ears flicked about, trying to hear the slightest sound.

"It's…kinda' quiet," Odd noted, his four paws digging at the dirt floor.

"Too quiet, if you ask me," Jade agreed from the back, her tail swishing back and forth nervously.

"Keep your head on a swivel," Yumi commanded, earning a nod from the others. A quiet buzzing sounded to Odd's right, and he stopped running first, bringing the rhombus to a halt. He crouched low to the ground, a feral hiss bubbling from his throat.

"Incoming!" Aelita shouted, ducking low and trying to stay out of the line of fire. From around the corner of a floating mountain peak, a hoard of Hornets came buzzing about, their wings beating so fast they were a black blur.

"Jeremy, X.A.N.A is sending us monsters," Yumi reported to her general above.

"I see that," Jeremy crackled over. "Separate their flight pattern, that ought to weaken them."

"You heard the man," Yumi snapped at the other authoritatively. "Jade and Odd, you two take Aelita to the tower, Ulrich and I will handle the monsters."

"Aye aye, commander!" Odd saluted before grabbing Aelita's wrist and dashing off with her, Jade guarding the rear. The sound of battle rang behind them as they fled, when suddenly the path ended before them.

"Jeremy, is there a platform to land on below?" Aelita asked nervously, peeking over the precipice carefully. Jeremy confirmed from above that there was, but from where the three were standing, all they could see was fog, and for all they knew, the Digital Sea beyond.

Jade grabbed Aelita's hand, and Aelita grabbed Odd's in turn, and with a cry of fear, the trio leapt off the edge. They fell for what seemed an hour, their organs left somewhere far, far behind, when the solid ground suddenly appeared all too quickly, slamming into them. They laid there for a moment, trying to re-inflate their compressed lungs, trying to breathe again.

"Nice jump," Jeremy noted from above, "but it cost each of you twenty life points." When the wind was no longer knocked out of Odd, he crawled to the girls and helped them sit up, waiting patiently for them to recover.

"It was worth it," Jade gasped, recovering next. "We can see the tower from here." Aelita lifted her gaze and looked across the way, where the tower stood menacingly in red light. She stood shakily, with the help of her two body guards, and after a few stumbling steps, the three were running at a reckless pace again, racing the clock and X.A.N.A's control over the Return to the Past program.

"Get ready for guests!" Jeremy suddenly shrieked from the other end of the line. "Three Hornets have abandoned Ulrich and are coming for you!" Aelita stopped first and held her finger over her mouth, signaling the felines to stay quiet. The buzzing of wings was growing louder, louder, louder, but from where on earth…?

"Above!" Jade cried, her neck cranking to see the insects dive bombing them. Jade tackled Aelita just as a laser sliced through where she had just been standing, and Odd returned fire, sending the Hornets scattering as they dodged the retaliation. "Go, hide behind that rock, we'll take care of this," Jade ordered her charge, throwing her forward towards safety as she turned to stand beside her brother.

"Hurry, X.A.N.A is launching another jump back in time!" Jeremy wailed from above.

"Couldn't you ask him to give us a five minute break?" Jade shouted back, as she and Odd rolled free from a volley of lasers.

"Um, X.A.N.A and I aren't really on speaking terms right now," Jeremy mumbled from above.

"What? You break it's heart or something, Einstein?" Odd called, shooting three Laser Arrows. One punched through the center of a Hornet, and the remaining two monsters swirled in the air.

"Now's not the time to be joking, Odd. Yumi has just been devirtualized, and Ulrich is on the way, with his own kite of enemies!" Jeremy chastised from above. Odd opened his mouth to say something else when a laser buried itself into his chest, sending him back to earth in a papery, white fashion.

"What an idiot," Jade grumbled, shooting out one of the two remaining Hornets. Ulrich threw his sword through the air, hilt and blade switching over each other, and speared through another. The final Hornet flitted about in fear, and between the two Warriors left, destroying it only took a second. "Aelita, the path is clear, go! The pink haired girl sprinted towards the tower, racing the clock, trying to get there in time-

Blinding white light, a loss of thought, the whirring of a rewinding tape. Jade blinked, and she was in her purple bed at Kadic Academy. Her alarm clock blared loudly, screaming, "Good morning, everyone, the sun is shining on this lovely Tuesday morning! Its seven a.m. and the birds are singing, the-"

"NO!" Jade shouted, pounding her fist in frustration on her alarm clock's button. She ran to the stairs, her neon green night shirt billowing behind her, pounded up the stairs, and saw Ulrich and Odd falling out of their bedroom door as well. Ulrich pulled out his phone and was dialing a number as the two boys shoved through Jeremy's bedroom door. Jade sprinted in behind them.

Jeremy's hair was a mess, his glasses skewed, and his eyes staring in disbelief at his computer monitor's screen. "We were so close!" Jade shouted, uncaring that to the rest of the sleepy students, this was their first Tuesday morning of the week, not their fourth.

"Oh, no, I don't believe it," Jeremy whimpered as Ulrich spoke quietly and rapidly to Yumi on the other end of the line. "Aelita's still on Lyoko!"

"What? How?" Odd demanded shaking his head in disbelief. Jeremy shoved the three of them out the door, unbuttoning his blue and white striped night shirt as he went.

"It doesn't matter!" he shouted. Several of the male students started leaning out their bedroom doors, concerned about the shouting. "Get dressed and be outside in two minutes!"

"Meet us at the factory," Ulrich said into his phone before disconnecting from their gothic friend. Jade ran back down the hall to the stairs and her lower leveled dorm, and some of the boys cried out in surprise at seeing a female on the male's only floor, her evening wear streaming behind her.

"This is RIDICULOUS!" Odd shouted as he pulled a purple sweater over his head for a fourth time. In seconds, the two boys were running outside, their hair a frazzled mess, tugging on a shoe as they hopped along. When they spilled out into the early morning sunshine, Jade was already there, pacing impatiently. "Where's Jeremy?"

"I thought he would come down with you!" Jade snapped. They stood about for a few seconds, waiting with bated breath.

"Oh, come on!" Ulrich groaned, leading the way back into the building. They threw open Jeremy's door, and found his room in utter disarray. Books were skewed across the floor, his computer chair rested on its side, his Einstein poster was torn on the floor. "What happened here?" Ulrich shouted, overwhelmed.

"You there!" Jade demanded, shoving her purple finger nail into the bare chest of a boy who had just gotten out of the shower. "What happened here?" The boy blinked. His hair dripping wet, frozen by the sudden intense female attention while he only had a towel wrapped around his waist.

"My sister asked you a question," Odd growled. They didn't have time for this! The boy stood dumb founded, not understanding the severity of the situation.

"ANSWER ME!" Jade roared. The boy flinched back, the volume of her voice seeming unwarranted to him. Boys all around the hall froze to watch the exchange.

"I-I don't know," the boy stuttered, shaking his head and spewing water droplets about. "Sissy was here, and barged into Belpois' room. Eventually, Herb and Nicolas went over to see what she needed. They all left together a few seconds ago, down the emergency fire staircase."

"Can we get a break?" Odd screamed as they all took off running again. Ulrich's phone rang as the trio ran outside, and he flipped it open angrily.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"Ulrich! Where are you?" Yumi shouted from the other end. "The last Hornet is still on Lyoko! It's chasing Aelita down!" The three scoured the surrounding area, looking for any sign as to…

"There!" Jade shouted, pointing. Just as Ulrich and Odd turned their heads, they saw a slip of pink fabric disappear into the gymnasium. The heroes ran off after Sissy's disappearing form. Ulrich spat out the explanation and hung up on Yumi, telling her to just hold on. As they bursted into the gym, a door off limits to students banged shut behind their disappearing target. The three kept running, following down, down, down into the storage basement. Finally, they busted into the boiler room.

Herb and Nicolas held Jeremy's arms locked behind his back. Sissy stood confidently just in front of them, facing the three, her hands on her hips. "Guys, look out! Sissy is possessed by X.A.N.A!" The older girl ripped a bronze pipe from where it lined the wall. Steam filled the room, clouding everyone's vision. In confusion and panic, Herb and Nicolas released their captive, trying to rub their eyes clear and cover their faces from the hot steam. Jeremy scrambled away in the madness and ran to the other's side. Sissy patted the pipe menacingly into her open palm, smirking in confidence.

"You guys go on," Jade said, her eyes narrowing as she pushed her damp purple and green bangs out of her eyes. "I can handle this." Odd gave his sister a comforting pat before the three boys turned and ran to the metal door the led to the earth tunnel. Beyond, the tunnel ended in a sudden drop off that landed in the sewers, and a straight shot to the factory.

"After them!" Sissy barked. Nicolas and Herb engaged Odd and Ulrich, and the two shouted in surprise and the physical assault. Odd shouted for Jeremy to run, and the boy genius managed to get away. With Jeremy well on his way to the factory, and the boys struggling amongst each other, Jade circled around Sissy, watching her moves.

"I've waited a long, long time for this," Jade purred, excitement flooding her veins. Sissy swung her metal bat at Jade's head. Expertly, Jade ducked and swooped her leg out behind her, sweeping Sissy's feet out from under her. As her body crashed onto the concrete floor, Jade quickly got to her feet and stomped on Sissy's closed fist. With a cry of pain, the possessed girl released the bronze pipe. Jade threw it far off to the side, and pounced on the older girl. Nails and feet and fists flew about, some landing, some missing entirely as the two girls ripped at each other's skin.

Sissy's knee slammed into Jade gut, knocking the wind out of her. She fell limp as Sissy rose to her feet, raising a fist high in the air. Ulrich's foot landed a savage kick on the side of the upper classman's face, sending her reeling, before turning back to Nicolas as he was pounced on. Jade rose to her feet, thanked Ulrich for the help, and then punched Sissy several times in the stomach.

Out of the pocket of her pink skirt fell the tape recorder that held all the evidence against them. Sissy elbowed Jade in the face, and she screamed in pain as she retreated a few steps, giving her room to maneuver. Ulrich and Odd ran back out to the storage room, and Sissy's goons gave chase, shouting for them to stand and fight. Sissy charged Jade, who rolled free from the attack and snatched the tape recorder off the ground. She threw it overhand as hard as she could at the concrete wall, and it slammed against it dead on, exploding into countless pieces. Sissy ran with a battle cry, the bronze pipe once more held high above her head, when she suddenly froze. Her eyes blurred, and the Eye of X.A.N.A left her pupils.

"What…what am I doing here?" she stuttered. Seeing the pipe held in her own hand aimed at Jade, she threw it aside. "What happened? Ow! Why does my side hurt? What's going on?" She demanded angrily. Before Jade could answer, Sissy's eyes landed on her tape recorder. "No! No, my recorder, the evidence!" Jade slipped out of the room and ran upstairs to find the gym empty. She ran outside just as a fire truck pulled up. She ran and snuck through the bushes before slipping out into the school's courtyard and blending in with the rest of the student body that had gathered to see the spectacle.

The principal walked over to the fire man, who said that they were there as they had heard of a broken pipe. Jade opened her phone and called her brother; Aelita and the others had done it, they'd deactivated the tower! Jade cheered loudly in victory, and the other students surrounding her glared at her obnoxious display in irritation. "What do you think you're doing, loser?" Sissy quipped beside her. Jade blinked in confusion.

"Sissy?" Jade said tentatively.

"Who else, numbskull?" The princess snapped, flipping her hair.

"Uh…what happened to your face?" Jade asked innocently, eyeing the reddening bruise on the side of her face.

"I fell out of bed last night, not that it's any of your concern!" Sissy hissed, flipping her hair again and stomping off. Jade stared after her in surprise, then ran off to meet the others by the biology building.

"Great news, Sissy doesn't remember anything!' she cheered, approaching the others.

"Lucky for us," Aelita sighed from where she sat on the stone step. "Our teachers have each given us four hours of detention for skipping their classes."

"If the test is on photosynthesis, I might get my first and only good grade as a scholastic washout," Odd mused, fixing his messy hair from the battle.

"Anyway, we now know that X.A.N.A can control people," Jeremy groaned.

"And that jumping back in time increases his power," Yumi sighed.

"We're gonna' have to be very careful," Ulrich nodded, fixing his own hair. "The next round's going to be tougher than ever."

"But Sissy, it happened, I swear!" Came Herb's whiney voice. The six peeked around the corner and found Herb and Nicolas trailing after Sissy with pleading looks.

"Idiots!" Sissy screeched, rounding on them. "You really expect me to believe that we had a bar fight brawl with those nit wits?"

"Sissy, Herb's tellin' the truth!" Nicolas begged, his face long with sadness.

"Believe me, I _would_ remember getting to beat up Jade Della Robbia, it'd be cake," Sissy sniffed, walking away again.

"Oh yeah?" Jade said to her pals, hiding back behind toe corner of the building. "Let's go ahead and count bruises then." The others laughed, and Odd threw his arm over his sister shoulder, pretending to be an announcer at a wrestling match.

"Good to see Sissy doesn't believe Herb or Nicolas," Ulrich said over Odd's obnoxious shouts.

"It won't be this easy next time," Jeremy said.

"What? You think that was _easy_?" Jade asked incredulously, lifting her shirt to revealing a blackening bruise over her ribs.

"Well, no, but just because I've regained control of the Return to the Past program doesn't mean we can just use it like we did before," Jeremy said. "Each time we use it, X.A.N.A will get stronger, so we will have to implement it sparingly. From now on, we can't rely on wiping everyone's memory clean to get out of trouble. We can only use it in dire situations."

"Great," Yumi groaned, smacking her forehead.

"At this point, I thought our day to day lives were dire situations," Ulrich mumbled.


	9. The Chips are Down

**Dear Claire- I didn't write Killer Music because the episodes I chose are a combination between my favorite episodes and the requester's favorite episodes. Killer music wasn't really one we thought of. If you really would like to see me write it, please message me and we can discuss it.**

 **Excluding this chapter, four more chapters will be written for this story. I've gotten a few people asking how many chapters I plan to write, and this is a public update. Thanks for reading!**

"Wow, that's a tough break," Jeremy groaned, removing his glasses and squeezing the bridge of his nose.

"You've gotta' be kidding," Jade moaned, grabbing onto Yumi's arm, trying to hold her in place, beside Jade, so she couldn't float away.

"Unfortunately…I'm not," Yumi sighed, putting her arm around Jade a giving her a reassuring hug. This was the scene Ulrich Stern stumbled upon when he showed up later than all his other friends before his Spanish class.

"Hey, what's going on here?" Ulrich asked, his eyebrows raised at the somber expressions.

"I really wish I could do something, Yumi," Aelita whimpered, wrapping her arm around Yumi's other side and hugging her as well.

"That's really nice of you, Aelita," Yumi sighed. The three girls squeezed each other, their eyes tightly shut against reality.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Ulrich snapped, disliking being in the dark while it seemed something truly dark was at hand. The bell rang, and Jeremy gave Ulrich a sad side glance.

"Look…we'll talk about it after class, okay?" Jeremy offered. The others began to walk towards their respective classes. As Odd and Jade walked by, Odd glanced up at him; his face was streaked with tears. Ulrich blinked in surprise; when was the last time he'd seen him cry?

During lecture, Ulrich continued to whisper quietly to his friends who sat in front of him, bugging them to spill the beans. "Yumi's father lost his job," Odd finally sighed, staring blankly at the paper before him.

"They're thinking about going back to Japan so he can find work," Jade grumbled, drawing a circle in the top right corner of her paper absentmindedly over and over again. Ulrich's jaw hung loosely open as he turned to Jeremy, who sat beside him, for confirmation.

"It's not for sure yet," Jeremy said, trying not to meet his friend's eye, "so don't panic."

"What!" Ulrich said, a little louder. A nearby student taking diligent notes shushed the group, and after a hastily whisper apology, continued. "Yumi's leaving, we may never see her again, and I shouldn't panic?"

"You know, there is an easy solution," Odd mused, turning around in his chair with a smirk at Ulrich. Ulrich raised an eyebrow, and Odd sang, "If you marry Yumi, then she can get green card."

Jade's stomach dropped to the floor. She sank the thick heel of her combat boot into Odd's toe, and he yelped in pain. After a quick chastisement from the professor, he turned back to his lecture, and Jade leveled her twin brother with a glare that would make plants wilt. Odd felt guilty; he knew how his sister felt about his roommate. As he turned back around and began taking sulky notes, he silently lectured himself about trying to keep his big mouth shut. Jade's pen continued to draw the circle, pressing her pen's point harder against the paper now, faster and faster.

" _Por Favor, Senor Katchya,"_ Ulrich spluttered suddenly as he leapt to his feet with a raised hand, his Spanish accent simply terrible. "Can I go to the infirmary, I'm not feeling so well." The professor granted his request, and as Ulrich slipped around the desk, Jeremy asked where he was going. "I'm going to talk to Yumi," Ulrich whispered as he passed by his friends. Jade's pen sank its sharp tip into the paper, already wet with ink, and it ripped loudly.

She hated herself for feeling this way. As she watched Ulrich's quick retreat from the classroom doorway, she felt both self-disgust and frustration. She was desperately saddened by the possibility that Yumi was leaving; happy emotions were hard for her to endure and feel, but melancholy, well she did those feelings best. And with the news that one of her closest friend's might be leaving half way across the globe, she felt close to tears. But the knowledge that Ulrich felt more romantically towards the Japanese girl than her, that he desired Yumi more than her…she hated herself for it, but jealousy was coursing through her veins, along with the apprehension of Yumi's possible departure. The fact that she could even feel jealousy at a time like this, when there were bigger things at stake than Jade's petty crush, made her more irritated with herself.

"Why can't you stay at the school as a boarder?" Ulrich asked angrily, kicking a small stone as he and Yumi paced the school grounds, both using the classic "I need to go to the infirmary" rouse. "You could go to Japan on summer vacation!"

"Are you kidding me?" Yumi sighed, shaking her head. "My parents would never go for that." She stared at the ground, and her chin length black hair fell in front of her face, a midnight curtain hiding her expression from him; he hated the way it kept her from him, as if she were already leaving. "What's more, my parents need me."

"Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" Ulrich hissed angrily. "What if-"

"Ulrich,"Yumi said, holding up her hand, halting his words, "it's nice of you to try to find a solution, but nothing has been decided. It might not be anything to worry about."

"I know!" Ulrich gasped, his mind running through a hundred different solutions at once and finally settling on one. "Why don't we write to our congressman and ask for help?"

"Sure, why not the president while you're at it?" Yumi snorted sarcastically before she returned to her class. Little did she know, the sarcasm wasn't sensed by Ulrich, and he had taken her comment very literally. That evening, when classes ended, Ulrich dashed to his room and flicked on the desk lamp, before writing draft after draft of a letter to congressman, a president, anyone who he believed could sway the Ishiyama's decision. However, each draft sounded worse than the last, and an hour later, Ulrich's trashcan was overflowing with crumpled up, half written letters.

 _Remember, folks, this week's Super Jackpot is 30 million big ones! The winning numbers are… 6, 22, 10, 47, 13, 37, and now that big bonus number, 14! If you have the lotto ticket with these numbers, run on down to the City Hall, located west on…_ Ulrich's hand scratched down the numbers listed by the blaring radio, and he stared at the sequence with a shaky grip. Should he…if it was for Yumi, not him…

"No, I couldn't do that," Ulrich sighed in resignation. He put the numbers in his messy desk drawer and began walking to the mess hall to join the rest of his friends. However, half way to the mess hall, his feet changed his course without his permission, and soon, he was running to the factory. "That wouldn't be right." Even as he said it, his mind was already settled. That evening, at the Ishiyama residence, the dinner table was tense with options and possibilities.

"Did you visit the temp offices today?" Yumi's mother asked as Hiroki slurped his noodles form his chopstick loudly.

"No. I haven't had time," Yumi's father replied curtly.

"That's too bad," Mrs. Ishiyama growled. "They could've had something for you, I mean, just to tie us over until we return to Kyoto." Yumi's father set down his small bowl of rice slowly, trying to keep his frustration in check.

"There is nothing out there for me, there are too many people working in my field!" he said, his voice a little louder than before. "You know that very well."

"Anyway, if you don't look, you certainly won't find anything," Yumi's mother said, acting as if her husband hadn't spoken. The cadence and tone of Mrs. Ishiyama's voice was that of superiority and condescending.

Mr. Ishiyama slammed his fist on the table, and his small bowl of rice tipped over, spilling across the tabletop. Hiroki cried out in surprise, and Yumi slipped her hand under the table to grab his knee and reassure him, unseen by her parents. "Would you stop it now?" Her father demanded loudly, glaring at his wife. "Did _you_ go to the temp agencies today?" Mrs. Ishiyama, unimpressed by his show of force, stared back at him coldly. Slowly, she pushed back her chair, rose from the table, and left the kitchen wordlessly. As their father glared at his spilt bowl and muttered to himself angrily, Yumi and Hiroki froze, unsure as to whether leaving or staying would turn his wrath on them.

"Daddy…" Hiroki's voice was cut off as a blinding flash of brilliant white light ripped through the wall, the windows, through Yumi's sight. She felt her worries fall away, piece by piece, and she was wiped clean and pure and suddenly, she was standing around with Jeremy, Jade, Odd, and Aelita, the first bell yet to ring, the sun still low in the eastern horizon.

"Wait…" Aelita said slowly, as if she was intoxicated, and slowly coming to through a haze of confusion, "what just happened?" Odd and Jade blinked in confusion at each other and looked around; about them, students laughed and gossiped and wrestling as if time hadn't just reversed itself to that morning.

Jeremy yanked out his laptop and set it on a nearby bench, a makeshift desk. "Why did we Return to the Past?" Jade asked quietly.

"Is it possible that X.A.N.A has regained control of the Return in Time function on the Supercomputer?" Yumi asked anxiously.

"No way," Jeremy said, shaking his head as his fingers danced upon the keyboard. "I made a special program just so he wouldn't be able to do that ever again." Furthermore, my Super Scan doesn't show any activated towers." He stared at the screen a little longer, then murmured, "that's really weird…." He shoved his laptop back into his bag with a grunt, shaking his head in confusion. "I'll go to the factory after class and check it out."

During Spanish, Ulrich acted oddly; his gestures and movements were stiff and forced. When asked to join them in the investigation after class, he declined immediately, giving a stuttered excuse as to why he wouldn't join them. Not thinking twice about it, the five other Warriors ran to the factory during lunch.

When Mr. Ishiyama heard a knock on the door around noon, he felt confused; perhaps Yumi had forgotten her house, but when was the last time his daughter had come home for lunch? When he opened the front door, however, it wasn't Yumi on the doorstep. "Ah, Ulrich," Yumi's father said with distaste, "how can I help you?" Hearing the name, Yumi's mother exited the living room and came to stand behind her husband, a suspicious eyebrow raised at the young man.

"Well, I know that you're going to think this sounds ridiculous," Ulrich stuttered, his tongue dry with nervousness, "but I heard you were having some trouble with work, and, well…." His foot circled on the doormat, hesitant to meet Yumi's Father's eye. "Well, I bought you a lotto ticket. You never know; maybe you'll be lucky! Then you could stay here with Yumi." Ulrich yanked the thin slip of paper out from his cargo pant pocket and held it out the Yumi's parents.

Mr. Ishiyama took the ticket and laughed at his optimism cruelly. "I'm sorry, son," he said, not sounding too apologetic, "but you have to admit, it does sound pretty funny. Do you know the odds of winning the lotto?" He stuffed the ticket in his breast pocket, shaking his head. "Well, at least you made me laugh, it's something I could use right now." Mr. Ishiyama shot his wife a passive aggressive glance as he said this, but she ignored it dutifully.

"Anyway," Mrs. Ishiyama said, bulldozing over her husband's jab, "thank you for the thought, Ulrich, we are really quite touched."

"Just don't forget to listen to the numbers," Ulrich insisted as he turned to leave. After taking a couple steps away, he turned back to the Japanese couple with a furrowed brow. "Oh, and don't tell Yumi I gave that to you; she might take it the wrong way." With that, Stern left the porch, and the Ishiyama's closed the front door.

In the following hour, the Ishiyama parents joked and chuckled about how silly the young man's hope was; the distraction gave them something to make fun of other than each other. However, later that evening, both were struck dumbfounded when the announcer on the radio called out the exact sequence of numbers their ticket had stamped on it.

"The winning ticket! The jackpot, the jackpot!" Yumi's father cried, hopping around the kitchen, waving the frail ticket above his head. Yumi, who was home on her off hour, dashed from her room to see what the commotion was, and was shocked, and for more reason than just because her family had won.

"You…you played in to lotto?" she sputtered. "But you- you hate gambling!"

"Actually, it was your friend Ulrich," Mrs. Ishiyama said absent mindedly. A moment of silence followed, then her eyes widened as she realized she had broken confidentiality.

"He didn't want you to know," Yumi's father told her, glaring at his wife. Yumi's face grew inexplicably red as she ran from the room, leaving the rest of her family rather perplexed. As Yumi ran from the house, her family continued to celebrate obliviously.

Back at the factory, Odd, Jade, Aelita and Jeremy all stood in the factory's master chair room, bathed in blue light as Jeremy typed frantically at the keyboard. "I don't get it," Jeremy growled, slamming his fist down on the armrest when his probing didn't turn anything up. "X.A.N.A had nothing to do with it. It's as if someone set off a Return to the Past from here!"

"Well, gang, it looks like we've got another mystery on our hands! To the Mystery Machine!" Odd said playfully, nudging his sister.

"But you're the only one who knows how to do it," Jade said to Jeremy as she swatted her brother's elbow away.

"Unless…someone read your manual," Aelita said quietly. An implicit silence filled the room as Odd's playful face and Jade's confused face darkened to defensive; surely she wouldn't be implying the twins?

"What makes you say that?" Jeremy finally asked, looking strictly at his crush and avoiding eye contact with the others. Aelita's gaze narrowed angrily as pieces started to fall together. As the four of them left the factory and headed back to school to finish the school day, she filled in the other's on her hunch, and as she spoke, Jade's stomach fell from its rightful place in her abdomen down into the soles of her shoes.

They arrived as Yumi arrived from her own home, and what she said to the group only furthered to confirm Aelita's suspicion. When Ulrich approached the others, finishing off an apple core from the cafeteria, the conversation came to a grinding halt. "Hey guys," Ulrich said, too elated with solving the Ishiyama issue to notice the hostile glares.

"Heyyyy, Ulrich," Jeremy hissed, his spectacles sliding down his nose. "You know, I'm really impressed with your computer skills."

"Who, me?" Ulrich spat in surprise.

"Well, you did enter the code for the Return to the Past into the Master Computer without making a single mistake," Aelita growled, unfolding her arms and placing them on her hips.

"Yeah, well done," Odd snapped.

"Wh-What are you talking about?" Ulrich asked, putting on his most convincing confused mask.

"Oh, don't waste your breath!" Yumi shouted, standing up straight from where she had been leaning against the trunk of a tree. She shoved her way through Jeremy and Aelita so she stood in front of Ulrich, her hurt pride and anger causing an awesome aura of power to seep from her form. "We know it was you who triggered the Return to the Past." Around them, several nearby students glanced their way with curiosity, though Yumi didn't care.

"You broke rule number one, Ulrich! I can't believe it!" Odd hissed. Jade bit her tongue; she hated this. She hated being at ends with her pals. She hated what Ulrich had did, how he had betrayed them all, but more importantly, she hated that he'd done something so tremendous…for someone else.

"I only did it for Yumi," Ulrich said, holding his palms up for a cease fire. He offered Yumi a pleading smile, saying, "So you can stay."

"I didn't ask for your help!" She shouted, in stark contrast to his quiet plea. Ulrich's eyes widened in shock.

"Do you realize what you've done, Ulrich?" Jeremy snapped, taking another aggressive step towards his friend. Jade flinched; she'd seen this all before on the nature channel. The pack of wolves dove in one by one on a defenseless deer, taking turns sinking their fangs into its skin as it screamed for them to stop.

"You know that going back in time makes X.A.N.A stronger," Aelita snapped.

"Why didn't you talk to us first, huh?" Odd jumped in, his face red with anger. "Why did you have to go sneaking around behind our backs?"

"I'm…I'm sorry," Ulrich said, his voice cracking weakly. Yumi dug into her pocket with disgust and yanked out a wadded piece of paper.

"It's too late for sorry," Aelita laughed humorlessly. Ulrich turned and looked at Jade, the only one to remain silent up until this point, silently begging for her help. She felt like she was drowning, but she knew what he had done was wrong.

"You've betrayed our trust," Jade whispered. Ulrich's face fell, and Jade's stomach twisted.

"Here," Yumi said, throwing the crumpled paper at Ulrich's chest. It felt like a brick slammed into his sternum as the little white ball booped against his chest and rolled harmlessly away. "You can take back your dumb ticket. My parent's think you should keep the money." The bell rang for the next class to start, and Yumi stormed away, not even bothering to look Ulrich in the eye as she shoved past him.

"As of now, until you hear otherwise," Jeremy said, finality ringing in his tone, "you are out of the group." He strode away, his nose high in the air, leaving Ulrich blinking in shock behind him. Aelita followed after him, her eyes trained on the ground.

"Ulrich, I…" Jade tried to comfort him, her brain screeching for her to say something, anything, to ease this blow. Her hand reached out to rub his shoulder, but her brother shifted the weight of his body onto one foot, effectively blocking her from his best friend.

"Come on, Jade," Odd snipped, glaring at Ulrich heatedly. "We'd better get to history class." He herded his sister away, and Jade obeyed slowly, knowing that he was right, but hating it.

"He only did it to keep us all together!" Jade hissed under her breath as they walked away, glancing back sadly at Ulrich's frozen figure.

"Yeah, and look where it got us," Odd snapped back. "Torn apart." In history, Ulrich sat alone, in the far corner of the room, sulking. Jade pouted beside her brother as the teacher's lecture droned on endlessly, a soundtrack to her misery.

"X.A.N.A has launched an attack," Jeremy whispered from behind her. Jade stiffened in her chair as Aelita gasped in shock. "We have less than a minute left in class. We'll go to the factory as soon as the bell rings." When the shrill call signaled the end of the period, the four Warriors leapt to their feet and ran out of the room. Jade skidded to a halt outside the classroom door, looking back at Ulrich, who's knowing eyes were locked with hers.

Odd snatched her elbow and pulled his sister along. "But Ulrich—" she argued.

"Isn't one of us anymore," Aelita said as she ran along with the two blonde siblings. Ahead, Jeremy yapped into his cellular, telling Yumi to head to the factory. She fell in step with the others, and the five of them ran to the sheltering shadows of the forest park's tree line. As Jade clamored down the ladder into the sewer, she felt her heart ripping in two at leaving Ulrich behind. As each Warrior grabbed their wheels in turn before zipping off down the concrete, Jade stood frozen, staring at Ulrich's unclaimed skateboard.

"Jade, let's go," Yumi called back impatiently as she rolled away quickly. Jade and Aelita virtualized first, quickly followed by Yumi and Odd. By the time that her brother's boots landed on the desert region floor, their vehicles were floating beside them.

"Aelita," Odd said graciously, bowing dramatically, "would you do me the great honor of climbing aboard my humble…uh…board?" Aelita giggled and hopped onto the back of the Overboard before Odd.

"The activated tower is located two platforms north," Jeremy stated from his master chair on Earth.

"Alright, let's go," Yumi said. The four blasted away, leaving a trail of desert dust behind them. A few minutes passed by uneventfully. "Jeremy, can I get a status update?" Yumi requested.

"No monsters for the time being," Jeremy obliged.

"It's not monsters I'm worried about," Jade said, pulling up beside her leader and glancing over at Yumi as she spoke to Jeremy. "It's X.A.N.A attacking on Earth." She gave her Draftboard a little tug and hopped over a rock in the way as she continued, "we still don't know what he's got in store for us this time!"

"Yeah," Jeremy agreed nervously. "I'd rather we deactivated the tower before we find out." A loud clanging of metallic stress caused Jeremy to look up in his chair; above him, hanging upside down like a vampiric bat, Nicolas stared at him, his outline grey and fuzzy. With a battle cry, he fell from above and pounced on Jeremy.

"Jeremy, are we close to the tower yet? We can't see it," Odd asked, his eyes scanning the horizon. They waited for a response, but nothing came from above. "Jeremy?"

"Look! Over there, a Krab!" The three Warriors followed Aelita's finger, and their eyes locked on the singular target until suddenly more and more Krabs came lopping behind the first. A battalion unprecedented of Krabs skittered a hundred yards to their right, racing them.

"Are my eyes playing tricks on me," Yumi groaned, "but are there at least twenty of them?"

"Jeremy, why didn't you warn us?" Jade shouted. "Jeremy, answer me!" Back on Earth, Jeremy rested on his side on the ground, groaning unconsciously, where X.A.N.A's Nicolas had left his incapacitated body. A evil cackle surrounded the four Lyoko Warriors as the wearily watched the Krabs as the flanked their right side.

"Jeremy, was that you?" Yumi asked in surprise.

"No, that isn't Jeremy," Odd growled as his eyes narrowed. "I'd recognize that laugh anywhere. It's Nicolas." Suddenly, from their right, several Krabs changed their direction from lopping beside the Warriors to dashing straight for them.

"Look out!" Aelita shouted fearfully. Odd weaved his Overboard away from the volley of lasers before suggesting they pick up the pace a little. The three vehicles sped up, reaching their maximum speed in an attempt to outrun the monsters. From behind, the Krabs continued their onslaught.

Yumi screamed in pain as a laser shoved itself into her shoulder. Her arm jerked away in reaction, and the handle on her Overwing followed. With the sharp twist, Yumi was flung off her vehicle, and she rolled to a stop several yards away from where the Overwing slammed into a boulder and exploded.

"Yumi!" Jade screeched, yanking her green and purple Draftboard about face. Odd followed suit, and the three raced back to their leader's side.

"I don't…understand," Yumi panted between difficult breaths. "Why does…it…hurt so much? Shouldn't I just loose some life points?" Aelita helped Yumi onto Odd's Overboard as they hopped off.

"Something's wrong at the factory," Odd said, watching the Krabs, which had been far behind, quickly gain ground.

"We're going to have to take cover," Jade sighed, seeing how close they were coming. They ran behind a small crest in the sand, and Jade and Odd climbed it slowly to see how close the Krabs were while Aelita comforted a pained Yumi. As Jade and Odd stealthily peered over the cusp, the battalion rounded the final corner, catching up to them.

"We'd better move," Odd called back down to the two girls. "Otherwise-"

"Odd!" Jade shouted. Odd turned to see a laser inches from his face before it slammed into his eyebrow. He was thrown back with a scream, and he rolled down the small hill, resting beside Aelita's feet. Jade dashed after her brother, calling his name in a panicky fashion.

"Wow," he groaned when his head stopped spinning. "That really does hurt!" Jade pulled her brother's head into her lap as Aelita scaled the incline slowly herself. "Aelita, what are you doing?" Odd moaned.

"My turn," Aelita whispered quietly to herself as she peered over the rim of the dune. Taking one more moment to assess the enemy's position, she folded her hands, closed her eyes, and turned her face to the Lyoko sky. Her pure voice rang out, and as her Creativity took effect, a great wall of ever falling sand rose in front of the Krabs. As the monsters tried their best to climb the vertical wall, they flipped over and rolled back down, their metallic legs screeching in frustration.

Aelita jogged back down the dune to her friends, saying, "It won't take them long to find a way around." Back on Earth, Ulrich trapped a possessed Nicolas in the elevator and pulled out the power lines, encaging him.

"Jeremy, Jeremy wake up, will you?" Ulrich shook Jeremy viciously, a grimace on his face. "Oh…Hi…Ulllrich..." Jeremy said drowsily. "How…how are you?"

"Jeremy, pull yourself together," Ulrich commanded, shaking a little more gently. "I need your help."

" 'Cause ya' know," Jeremy slurred, his eyes rolling about in his skull, "I'mma… I'mma not feelin' so great." His head lolled back as consciousness slipped through his fingers again. With a frustrated groan, Ulrich lowered Jeremy back onto the ground before hopping into the master chair. "Guys?" he asked nervously as he pushed the ear piece in. "Guys, can you hear me?"

"Ulrich!" Aelita gasped in surprise.

"Is that you?" Jade asked hopefully.

"Oh, great," Ulrich sighed with relief. "You're alive!"

"Yeah, but not in great shape," Odd agreed.

"What about Jeremy?" Yumi inquired.

"He's also in pretty bad shape," Ulrich said, shaking his head. "I don't get it, there's nothing on these screens! These monitors are blank!"

"That must be why the lasers are hurting us for real," Aelita groaned. "X.A.N.A used Nicolas to corrupt the sector!"

"Wait, what's that noise?" Jade asked, her feline ears flicking backward. The four of them ran back up the bluff and gasped in horror. A Krab was effectively shoving its way straight through the wall of falling sand. As the first one forced its way through, the rest of the wall devirtualized, its structure compromised.

"OUCH!" Jeremy shouted, rousing suddenly as Ulrich's slap brought him to. "What's going on?" Ulrich handed his friend his glasses, a relieved grin on Ulrich's face. Quickly, Jeremy asked Ulrich for an update then reclaimed his place in the master chair. "Nicolas deactivated the scanner, but I should be able to fix it pretty fast." Ulrich tried to start a conversation and apology for his actions, but Jeremy cut him off quickly, saying it wasn't the time. "Head for the scanner and get ready!"

On Lyoko, Jade screamed as the first laser buried itself into her calf as she sprinted away from the fire. When the Krabs had crested the dune, the first thing they destroyed were Odd's and Jade's Overboard and Draftboard, and now the four were booking it on foot.

Yumi cried out in pain as a laser buried itself into her shoulder, throwing her forward. "Yumi!" Odd shouted as she fell forward.

"Got it!" Jeremy said from above. Yumi's hands planted themselves firmly into the sand and she sprung back onto her feet without missing a step, the pain instantly gone.

"Woo hoo! We're invincible again!" Odd cheered, pumping a fist into the air as he ran.

"Everyone, just hold on!" Jeremy reassured them from the sky. "I'm sending in Ulrich." The Krabs flanked the Warrior's side, and they were surrounded in a red seething sea of aggression. Jade and Odd crisscrossed and rolled, they ducked and dodged, drawing the focus of the lasers to them as Yumi lead Aelita behind a cluster of boulders to cower behind. A Krab exploded to the right, another to the left, just over there, and yet another further back, but the sheer mass numbers were overwhelming.

"We need a miracle!" Yumi gasped as one of her fans returned loyally to her palm after slicing through a monster.

"No," Odd said, shaking his head as he head the whirring of materialization behind him. "We need a friend." Ulrich dropped from above and landed heavily on all fours. A laser slammed into his chest, and he was immediately knocked onto his back.

"Looks like I came at the right time," Ulrich grunted, bouncing back onto his feet and dashing into the fray.

"It's good to have you back on board," Jade said, offering a warm smile, before summersaulting away from a laser. Ulrich used the width of his blade to block laser after laser when the assault halted suddenly. The Krabs lopped around the Warriors and formed a wall of red, spindly legs, blocking the access to the tower.

"You're vehicles are being reprogrammed, and are on their way," Jeremy chimed from above. "They could be handy." The air filled with a deep whirring, and the vehicles materialized before each of their respective owners.

"Great," Jade sighed sarcastically. "Maybe five down, another twenty to go!"

"You and Yumi might as well go over the top," Odd said, flipping onto his Overboard.

"What about you two?" Yumi asked, her penciled eyebrow raised. Jade smirked and cartwheeled onto her Draftboard, pulling Aelita gently on after her.

"Don't worry about us," Jade winked. "We like to take the fun way." With a holler of excitement, the twins and their digital princess whizzed towards the wall of red. Each of the Della Robbia's snuck _beneath_ the Krabs, swerving free of the white columns of laser light that tried to fry them.

"They've really lost it this time!" Ulrich groaned, watching the dangerous, but rather effective, method.

"No more than you have," Yumi argued with a grin. As Odd, Jade, and Aelita slipped through the primary wall of Krab legs, Ulrich and Yumi made their own charge. Taking a natural ramp in the sand, Ulrich skittered onto the hoods of the Krabs, and digging his saber into their eyes behind him, they exploded beautifully, a trail of flame and spark behind his Overbike. Yumi looped and spun through the air on her Overwing, throwing her fans constantly, never allowing them to rest in her palm for more than a moment.

Jade and her charge finally broke through the second line of Krabs, with Odd hot on their heels, when Odd groaned in anger. "Come on, not another row!" A third row of Krabs blocked their advance, although this one stood a single layer deep, instead of nearly five or six.

Odd kicked the back of his Overboard downward, and it bucked up high in response. He soared over the single line of enemy units, and shot a deft Laser Arrow in to the center of the Eye of a single Krab, creating an opening. "Jade, now!"

With Aelita's hands wrapped firmly around her waist, Jade pulled savagely on the balance bar on her Draftboard and sliced through the break of enemy lines and zipped towards the tower. "Jeremy, I think we've done it!" Jade cheered happily, the home stretch sweet and calm. Aelita charged into the tower, and the four Warriors outside sighed with relief. They began to battle childishly, dancing around the attacks and laughing then actually trying to destroy the monsters.

"Code: Lyoko," Aelita smiled, pressing her hand against the interface. "Tower: Deactivated." The digital information and memory fell from the inner walls of the tower quickly. Outside, the Krabs devirtualized.

Jeremy called his friends home, and with quite a bit of shuffling and shouting, the six of them lugged Nicolas' unconscious body back to the academy. They quickly dropped him off at the infirmary, then slipped from the building.

Outside, in the late afternoon sunshine, Ulrich bit the inside of his cheek nervously; he still didn't know where he stood with his pals. "I know you did it for me, Ulrich," Yumi finally smiled. Ulrich sighed in relief before turning with a giant grin to his buddy.

"But I should've asked you first," he argued. "I'm sorry."

"Guess your back in the group," Aelita sang happily.

"So, what'd you do with that lotto ticket?" Odd smirked.

"Thought about it," Ulrich mused, "I gave the money to an association that builds fresh water wells in Africa."

"Wow," Jade sighed dreamily, "what a great idea." Jeremy raised an eyebrow at Jade's tone. Jade quickly remembered herself, glared at her friend, and pulled her blonde, green, and purple bangs back in front of her face, trying to shield her adoring expression. Jeremy's face broke into a knowing smirk, but he turned away with saying anything.

Yumi's phone rang, and she answered it immediately. When she hung up, not even all the clouds in the world could cover the sunshine of her smile. "My dad found a job, right here in France!" The group cheered happily, and Jade felt a peace settle over her that she hadn't known for what felt like years. Her best friend was staying right where she belonged. Her other best friend, and also secret crush, was back in their circle. The tower was deactivated, the school was saved, and everything was just as it should be.


	10. Marabounta

"Ants are social insects, like termites or like bees," Ms. Hertz droned, her back turned to the class as she drew and labeled a diagram of an ant on the board. "A single individual is incapable of any personal initiative. The decisions are made by the colony." Several students yawned behind their hands as they leaned on the desks near the front of the room. The only students truly attentive to the lecture were Aelita and Jeremy, who were both bent at the waist, observing the ant farm that Hertz had brought with her to class that day. "Although the creatures may seem bright, it is truly a collective intelligence."

"You mean an army of Sissy's could be intelligent?" Odd snorts, interrupting the lecture and causing Ms. Hertz to turn from her labeling abruptly. "I don't believe it!" The class snickered as Ms. Hertz ordered class to return to order.

"Ms. Hertz, what about killer ants?" Ulrich asked curiously as the room returned to calmness. "Do they exist?

Hertz smirked and stuck her nose in the air at his naïve question, shaking her head in amusement, causing her grey cloud of wiry hair to shake back and forth. "Well, yes, Ulrich, maybe in movies," she chuckled. The class began laughing again, and Ulrich tried to hide his blush by staring out the window angrily. Jade rubbed his back for a moment comfortingly; _she_ thought it was a worthwhile question.

"There are, in fact, army ants though, and they destroy everything in their path," Hertz continued, returning to labeling the antennae of the sketched ant she had on the board. "It's true to best stay out of their way."

"Do any of those filthy bugs live around here?" Sissy asked with a flip of her hair and a crinkled nose, the furthest one from the ant farm.

"No, fortunately. They live down in South America. There, the phenomena is called marabounta," Hertz called over her shoulder.

"Phew, I'm glad I live in a country where there isn't any danger," Sissy sighed as the bell rang. As the other students began to pack their items, Aelita shot Jade a smirk and rolled her eyes for her pal to see; how on Earth could Sissy be that dumb?

The students ran to the lunch room, trying to beat their classmates to the line. Yumi joined them when they were all able to finally sit down. "Saturday's my favorite day," Odd chimed, swallowing a forkful of pineapple before continuing. "No school in the afternoon!"

"I like Sunday's better," Jade grinned before catapulting a grape at her brother with her plastic fork. "No school at all." While the others continued with their playful banter, Aelita couldn't help but notice Jeremy's intense stare out the window.

"You seem worried, Jeremy," she ventured. "What's on your mind?"

"Franz Hopper's notes, Aelita," Jeremy sighed, returning his gaze from the window to his pale blue lunch tray, where most of the food still sat, uneaten. "Last night, I decoded a really interesting part on a multi-agent system." The other's stopped their tom foolery and turned to Jeremy, attentive. "It's a computer program that follows the principle of an ant hill. What happens is-"

"Oh, no!" Ulrich interjects, shaking his head quickly in disgust.

"Ms. Hertz has already bored us to tears with all that ant stuff, don't you start now," Odd spat. Jade and Yumi laughed into their elbows, trying to hide the unsightly view of partially chewed food in their mouths.

"Seriously," Jeremy hissed, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose in irritation. "This time, I might've found a way to really weaken X.A.N.A. Let's head up to the factory after lunch, I can explain everything there." Aelita suddenly rose from her seat, grabbing her lunch tray and hopping over the lunch bench.

"Well, normally I'd love to," she said as she walked away, "but I really gotta' finish my Italian homework. See ya'." She walked away, dumped her spare food into the trash can, left her tray on top of the lid, and walked from the cafeteria. Jeremy stared after her through the window, and missed the panicked look the rest of his group shared.

"Yeah, well, I gotta' go practice for a skateboarding competition," Odd added.

"And I've got swimming after classes," Yumi continued.

"I'm headed to clean up my room," Jade said apologetically as she herself got up from the table. "I can hardly see the floor anymore. Sorry." As the three walked away, Jeremy turned to Ulrich.

"Well, what about you, Ulrich? Are you doing anything now that classes are over?" Ulrich glanced over his shoulder darkly, but at what, Jeremy couldn't imagine.

"Yeah, I gotta' be somewhere," Ulrich responded.

"Oh, yeah? Where?" Jeremy asked, chewing on a small carrot. Ulrich stared after Yumi as she exited the cafeteria with William.

"The swimming pool," Ulrich quipped, quickly rising to follow.

"Well, because it seems like everyone has something better to do, I guess I'll go handle it by myself," Jeremy grumbled to himself, throwing the majority of his food away.

At the swimming pool, Ulrich watched at William performed a perfect dive from the 10 foot tall diving board. Yumi, who sat on the pool's edge, clapped enthusiastically at her form. He splashed over and threw his arms over the cement ledge near her, resting the weight of his body both in the water and on his arms as he chatted with her. Ulrich felt his chest swell with jealousy, and he quickly climbed the ladder to the slick diving board above.

"Hey, whatdoya' know? Isn't that Ulrich Stern about to dive?" William asked, glancing up at Yumi through his wet locks. Yumi's neck snapped rigid as she looked up to her friend above. Ulrich's knees bent and his thighs tightened, and just as he was about to spring, his eyes darted to the pool's edge below, and his eyes met Yumi's.

His foot slips, and Ulrich plummets at an awkward angle into the water, a stoned bird falling from the air. Yumi screams, calling to see if there's a life guard on duty. Pounding feet from nearby students as they come to watch the spectacle. Ulrich's entire body aches, and all of his muscles are taunt with pain. He struggle to flap his arms, kick a leg, anything to propel him to the surface, but he's sinking, drowning…

When Ulrich regains consciousness, he finds himself in the most awkward situation of his life thus far. Jim leans back as Ulrich chokes up water, coughing as he tries to find air. "Ah, good thing I was here. I got my CPR certificate a while back," Jim crowed.

"Wow, Ulrich's so lucky William saved him," someone whispered.

"Are you okay?" Yumi asked as she crawled close, patting Ulrich on the back as he coughed harder and tried to wipe the taste of Jim's kiss of life from his mouth. He smacked Yumi's hand away, and stormed to the locker room, embarrassed and infuriated.

He showered and went straight to his dorm room, brooding on his stupidity. He hadn't been alone for a few minutes when the dorm room door banged open, and his roommate walked in, holding his skateboard under his arm. Odd smiled at Ulrich in greeting, but when he only received a glare in return, his grin withered.

"What's the matter?" Odd asked as he shoved his board underneath his bed.

"Nothing," Ulrich scowled. Odd straightened and gave his best friend a critical stare, trying to decipher what was bothering him. "Where's Jade?" Ulrich asked, trying to change the subject.

"She decided to do her studying with Aelita, now what's got you so-" the bright chime of Odd's phone cut off his interrogation. He dug in his pocket, and yanked his cellular device free. "Yello?" he answered cheerily. A moment passed as the person at the other end of the line talked, then Odd replied, "Alright, soon as possible." Odd clicked the "end" button and turned back to Ulrich.

"Jeremy's called an immediate meeting at the factory," Odd called as he headed for the door. When Ulrich didn't rise to follow, Odd turned back, a furrow in his brow. "You coming?" Ulrich growled in irritation and turned his back on Odd, his body language speaking volumes to his frustration.

"I'm not in the mood," Ulrich snapped. "I'd rather be by myself." Odd about faced and glared at the back of his best friend's head. Geez, Ulrich was _always so moody_.

"Come on," Odd countered. "You know if you don't come, Jeremy will get mad." Ulrich turned his face partially back to Odd, so only one half of his expression could be seen, and narrowed his eyes into his most angry glare.

"Leave. Me. Alone." Ulrich hissed, his bruised pride causing him to lash out. Odd and Ulrich stared at each other in anger for a moment, when finally Odd snorted in disbelief.

"Fine. Suit yourself, both of you can stay here," Odd grunted, returning to the door.

"Both of us?" Ulrich asked in confusion, turning fully back to his best friend as his eyebrows touched in bewilderment.

"Yeah," Odd replied without turning around as he stepped through the door. "You and your bad attitude." With that, Odd slammed the door so hard that the pencil holder across the room on Ulrich's desk rattled. Odd went by Aelita's room and picked up her and his sister. When Aelita called Yumi's phone, there was no answer.

"She's still swimming, I bet. Come on, Jeremy's waiting on us," Jade said, leading the way into the sewers. When they finally entered the control room, Jeremy was bursting with impatience.

"There you all are! Hey, wait," Jeremy paused, "Where's Ulrich?"

"He's sulking," Odd grumbled, shaking his head. "I don't know what his problem is." Jade scowled too; sure, she liked Ulrich, but that didn't give him a free ticket to be a jerk.

"What's this program?" Aelita asked as she finally reached Jeremy's side, turning the conversation back to the subject at hand.

"It's marabounta," Jeremy declared proudly. "My very own creation."

"And what does it do, exactly?" Jade asked, her irritation at Ulrich seeping into everything she did.

"It's a multi-agent system that functions according to the same principle as an ant hill," Jeremy continued, the Della Robbia twins' moods not getting him down. "Instead of ants, though, we have these little spheres whose mission is to search and destroy X.A.N.A's monsters."

"I get it," Odd smiled, the good news making him forget about his conflict with Ulrich. "While the monsters are getting wiped out by your ants, X.A.N.A leaves us alone while we're on Lyoko!"

"Bingo!" Jeremy cheered. "You've guessed it!"

"Hey, that's great!" Jade smiled, pushing her long rogue bangs behind her ear, only to have them slip in front of her face again.

"But wait," Aelita interjected, her expression more cautious than jubilant. "What if there's a real bug in the program?"

"Impossible," Jeremy sniffed, folding his arms proudly across his chest. "Remember, Franz Hopper was a genius."

"Why don't we go to Lyoko to check it out?" Odd suggested to Aelita and Jade. "If this thing really works, then nothing can happen to us."

"You read my mind, Odd," Jeremy sang. "Go to the scanner room, I'll transfer you!" Jade and Odd immediately made for the elevator, excited at the future that this program posed. Aelita's face was full of worry and fear as she stared at Jeremy's bright computer screens, unwilling to look at anyone else, but also unwilling to follow the twins. "If there's the slightest problem," Jeremy whispered, just so he and Aelita could hear, "I'll pull the plug, promise." Aelita, glad to be saved the humiliation of the others knowing she had doubts as to both Hopper's and Jeremy's skill, but still feeling uneasy about testing the program, she nodded at Belpois and joined the two other blondes in the elevator.

Aelita was so nervous for what awaited her on Lyoko that she didn't hear Jeremy's routine calling procedure until he said "virtualization", and she was being broken down on a molecular level. She felt lighted headed and nauseous, which was strange, as in this moment, there wasn't a head to feel light, nor a stomach to feel queasy. Just her millions of molecules whizzing through a pipe.

She landed on Lyoko and felt immediately better, with her strong feet beneath her. "You're south of the marabounta," Jeremy informed them from above. "Take the path to your right. Sorry, you'll have to travel without your vehicles, though; I don't have enough machine resources to bring them up."

"Roger, General," Odd smiled before racing the two girls forward.

"Hey look, a Krab," Jade shouted, pointing to the tall, awkward machine. "It's moving pretty fast, I don't think I've ever seen one move that fast before!"

"Follow it!" Jeremy instructed from above. "It's headed in the right direction." The red Krab disappeared into the distance, but they followed the claw marks it left in the forest sector floor. After a few minutes, Odd's paw shot forward in a pointed finger.

"Guys, look!" he exclaimed. Aelita felt a pit form in her stomach. "Jeremy, we can see it! We can see the marabounta!"

"Well, what's it like?" Jeremy breathed excitedly. The Krab was struggling to stand as a living black, oily mass scaled up its legs, working its way into the monster's joints. The mass was shining and lurched about, bubbling like a cauldron of toxins. Jade shivered; looking at it she thought of oil spills in the ocean, making the sea animals writhe, choking and coughing until they just couldn't breathe anymore…

"It's pretty scary," Jade whimpered, taking a few steps back, and grabbing Aelita's hand to shift her further away as well. The Krab lurched and shook, trying to free itself. Aelita was grateful that the monster couldn't make a sound; she feared what kind of horrific screams it would've made under such a terrible and painful fate.

It's legs finally collapsed beneath it, and it sunk below the marabounta's surface. The only indication that the Krab had been fully destroyed, and not just carried and absorbed into the black mass, was a small light that shined through the surface. The dense marabounta absorbed the entire shock wave and sound of the Krab's death.

Nearby, other monsters were facing equally treacherous deaths. Wasps were being shot from the air, Megatanks were being swept away as if the giant beasts were a pebble before a great, living wave. The worst monster's death to endure was the Tarantula's. When the Tarantula's leg was first touched by the black, toxic bulk, it screeched tremendously, causing Aelita to cower into Jade's embrace, burying her face in Jade's chest. It screeched and wailed in pain, fighting for its life in such an inhumane battle. If the poor monster tried to scrape the marabounta off with one leg with another, the marabounta would only transfer over their acidic burn, spreading quicker and killing the Tarantula faster. Aelita never imagined she'd feel bad for X.A.N.A's abominations.

"I never thought I'd say this," Odd said incredulously, shaking his head, "but I feel bad for X.A.N.A."

"It's working even better than I thought!" Jeremy crowed victoriously from back on Earth.

"If you want my opinion, Einstein," Jade sighed, cradling her friend, "you've invented yourself a nasty piece of work." Jade was glad that deactivating towers would be easier, and that Lyoko trips would be less dangerous, but… the feral and animalistic screeches of the painful deaths around her made Jade's tail twitch in apprehension and her ears flatted against her skull. The sound of death made her want to flee.

"Jeremy," Aelita whimpered finally, "I've seen and heard enough." Her voice was filled with such disgust and fear, she sounded like a five year old who just watched her first nature documentary on a lion's hunting habits. "I… I wanna' come back in." Jade petted Aelita's head kindly, hushing her soothingly.

"Yeah, alright I'll bring you back," Jeremy said from above, his voice suddenly dripping of unspoken apologies. He regretted making her see that. "Head southwest, there's a tower nearby."

"Got it!" Odd grinned, the least shaken by the experience. He sprinted off, unscathed by the marabounta's dark tactics, but felt all the light drain ffrom his body, leaving him weak and clumsy, when he heard Jade scream.

Jade, being quiet and shy, wasn't known for being very outspoken. When she screeched with pure terror and bone-chilling fear, every strand of fur and every hair on his body stood on end as he whipped around. Odd could've sworn his world was ending.

Somewhere, on another planet, Jeremy's voice asked, "Odd, what's happening?" but the voice felt like miles away, and so unimportant.

Surrounding his little sister and his best friend, the marabounta was slithering forward, reaching with thin, oily tendrils to touch either of them. Aelita clung to Jade's back, sobbing hysterically, as Jade shot Laser Arrows wildly, trying to protect both herself and her charge. Jade's eyes, which were usually cool, collected, and calm behind her bangs, were wide and watery. She blinked every half a second to keep her vision from growing blurry with tears; in this moment, she was the only thing protecting their lives. _Odd, what's happening?_

Before Odd could comprehend what he was doing, he was sprinting back to them. His legs were pumping as fast as they could, but every part of his body felt heavy. His arms slapped uncoordinatedly against his body as he ran, his feet were dragging, his vision was hazy. Everything was happening, happening to fast. Yet so slow. He was so slow. The marabounta was fast, closing in on two of the most important people in his life.

"Odd, Odd," Aelita sobbed, quaking in fear. _Odd, what's happening?_ As Odd ran, the fear intoxicated him, blurring his vision, dragging his arms, weighing down his feet as he tried to move faster. Thoughts jumbled, arrows fired, and Jade screeched his name, begging for her older brother to rescue them. _Odd, what's happening?_

Odd was still too far away to be of any help, and he knew if he tried to close the distance physically, he'd be too late. He called his sister's name as he lifted his arm and shot a Laser Arrow, praying to all the gods he didn't believe in that she'd see it in time.

Jade's gaze met her brother's and she shot a Laser Arrow of her own at the exact same spot as he. The combined explosion of their darts cut a swath of clear land through the marabounta to her brother. Jade savagely gripped Aelita's robes and shoved her through the half a breath's span, shouting, "Go!" Aelita stumbled forward into a reckless sprint, her breath wheezing as she sobbed for air. Jade squeezed through the closing gap and quickly caught up to her charge. She grabbed the back of Aelita's clothes and hauled her forward even faster.

Odd fell in step with the girls, wanting all in the world to stop and cradle them, tell them everything was alright, but the sloshing sound behind them told him they were far from safe.

"Odd, for the love of everything good and pure, _what's happening?"_ Jeremy shrieked from above. Odd shook his head, finally hearing Jeremy clearly, his loved ones saved from the jaw's of death.

"Your stupid marabounta has it in for us!" odd shouted to the sky in rage.

"Now is no time for jokes," Jeremy chided from above. "I only programmed the marabounta to go after X.A.N-"

"Jeremy, you idiot, it almost got Aelita and my sister!" Odd hollered back, cutting off the programmer. Jade ran on all fours, her eyes still huge, watery saucers as she fought back the hysteric breakdown that was threatening to overwhelm her as she tried to focus on protecting Aelita, and not the fact that she and Aelita had almost been torn apart.

"This…this can't be right," Jeremy stuttered, the anxious energy of his creation almost killing the most important people to him making his voice waver. "Di-di-did you do something special?"

"I fired a couple of Laser Arrows-"

"Odd, you're the idiot, why would you-"

"Stop fighting!" Jade shrieked, her fear causing her usually monotone voice to be ear piercing with panic as they ran full tilt from the massing black wave. "We didn't have a choice!" Jade fired another Laser Arrow at a specific tendril that almost brushed her brother's shoulder. The marabounta was gaining on them. "It was going to kill Aelita and me!"

"How can that be?" Jeremy shrilled incredulously. Everyone was so panic filled, the whole group conversation was nothing but screech after screech. "Unless…" his fingers were swollen with terror, and clumsily he began tapping away at the keyboard, several typos slowly him as he had to retype the proper sequence again.

"Oh, Jeremy, you IDIOT!" Jeremy shouted at himself when the screen he desired finally appeared. "It's my fault! The virus planted in Aelita is making the marabounta think she's one of X.A.N.A's monsters!"

"Nice work, Frankenstein," Odd yowled as he performed a back hand spring to shoot at the black liquid behind him before fleeing again, not losing speed. "I thought you said we had nothing to worry about!"

"Jeremy, get us out of here!" Aelita sobbed, her lungs aching but knowing to stop would be the end.

"I know, okay, head to the tower, I'm killing the program!" Jeremy wailed, guilt smothering him from all angles. He typed in the deletion sequence, and hit enter, only for a raging red exclamation mark to blink in his face, blaring a siren noise. "Oh, no! No, no, NO! I CAN' KILL THE PROGRAM, THE MARABOUNTA DOESN'T WANT TO DIE!" Aelita's new sobs shook her whole body, slowing her down.

"You gave it a _mind_?" Jade screeched in panic, grabbing Aelita's elbow to drag her along faster.

"No, no, it somehow grew autonomous!" Jeremy cried. "It will submerge anything and everything in it's path! I'm calling Ulrich and Yumi for backup!"

"Jeremy, please hurry," Aelita begged. Her legs were seizing up, she wasn't sure how much longer she could run for.

Respite came in a darkly ironic way. The trio skidded to a halt to see that the marabounta had already covered the way tower, their sanctuary, and no ground in any direction wasn't seething in black, bubbling liquid. "At this rate, all of Lyoko will be destroyed!" Jeremy groaned. The three Warriors were surrounded, with Aelita blocked from her two guardians. "Look out, X.A.N.A's sending in a monster!" Jeremy yelled.

A Krab landed nearly on top of Aelita. Aelita braced for the laser, but one never came. Instead, the Krab scooped Aelita on one of it's legs and shucked her across the sea of marabounta, so that she landed beside Odd, once again in their radius of protection. Just as Aelita was thrown, the Krab fell to the grasp of the living oil, exploding silently beneath the surface.

"Did that Krab just sacrifice itself for you?" Odd blinked in surprise. X.A.N.A's Bloks materialized in droves above them and fell from the sky, forming a protective perimeter around the three.

"I…I think I understand," Jeremy slowly said from above. "X.A.N.A knows he can't let Aelita die, cause he needs her memory."

"What's the matter with them?" Jade whimpers when one Bloks marches to close, but proceeds to shoot a laser at the nearing marabounta, and not at her.

"Their… protecting me," Aelita whispered in awe, staring at her foes turned friends.

"Aelita's right, "Jeremy said, finally capping his panic and returning to his offensive coordinator position. "Use them as allies to defeat the marabounta!" Jade and her brother took up spots between the Bloks and Kankrelats, shooting Laser Arrows into the shifting mass as it tried to approach.

Suddenly, Yumi materialized from above, and tossed a fan. It sliced through the Bloks to Jade's left, destroying the help.

"No, Yumi, not them!" Jade barked, and began firing twice as fast to make up for the lost gunman.

"The marabounta is the one to go after!" Aelita instructed, pointing at the multiplying ocean. Yumi's eyes widened in horror upon alighting on the creation.

"What is that horrible thing?" she gagged, shaking her head in repulsion.

"One of Jeremy's bright ideas," Odd hissed.

"Right now, X.A.N.A's an ally, and our only enemy is the marabounta," Jade said sharply, her near death experience's unbridled fear finally releasing her, and allowing her to focus. Yumi blinked, trying to clear her vision, if it had been wrong. Lyoko Warriors fighting alongside X.A.N.A's monsters.

"The world has turned upside down," she mumbled, before taking position between to Kankrelats to fill a hole it the wall of bodies' defense. Above, Jeremy struggle to regain control of his creation.

"How are you doing up there, Jeremy?" Aelita asked.

"I'll never make it in time, I'm such an idiot!" Jeremy moaned, slamming his fists on the armrests of his master chair. "I never even considered that your virus could be a…" Jeremy blinked at the idea forming in his head. "Your virus…what if…" he typed in some inquisitive strokes, and a victorious grin broke across his face. "This ought to work!"

"Jeremy, move it, things are getting out of hand," Yumi growled, the area that her knife sharp fans just cleared being filled once again with marabounta.

"I'm working on it," Jeremy sang nervously from above. To Odd's left, a pair of sticky tendrils shot from the forefront of the marabounta, wrapping around two Kankrelats, and dragging them to a silent end. "I think I've found a way to destroy the marabounta!" Jeremy finally declared from the sky. "Jade, I've inserted a code for a deadly virus into one of your arrows. If you hit a sphere with it, the whole colony will be infected!"

Jade immediately took aim at the massing black lake before her ready to finish the nightmare. "Wait!" Jeremy cried.

"What for?" Jade hissed.

"It'll only work if you hit the _first_ sphere!" Jeremy warned. "The one that I transferred to Lyoko that created all the others. It's at the heart of the marabounta."

"Great, so how is she supposed to reach the heart of the marabounta? On a camel's back?" Odd snorted short temperedly. A whirring of cogs brought the four Lyoko Warrior's gazes to a Krab, who had tilted it's hood in a greeting and bow towards Jade.

"It's the only way," Yumi said encouragingly. Jade leapt lithely onto the beasts back and wobbled slightly when it righted itself to its full height once more.

"Be careful," Aelita called from several feet below.

"Well, here we go!" Jade said to herself after a steadying breath. The Krab she rode charged into the oily lake, it's long legs covering a lot of ground quickly. As it lurched and struggled against the masses marabounta that was scaling its legs, Jade wondered how long it could keep going.

Aelita's scream of pain and fear caused Yumi to turn around rapidly. A tendril of marabounta was spiraling up Aelita's leg, trying to drag her into the main body of it's destruction. Yumi sprinted the short distance and hacked at the marabounta with her fans, slicing away the death grip that was burning Aelita's leg. The moment she was free, Aelita hobbled away quickly, and rubbed at her ankle soothingly, trying to forget the icy hold of the marabounta that burned her skin.

The marabounta slid up Yumi's body, coating her in a thick layer. The chilling burn of the marabounta's caress reminded her of what frostbite must feel like. Her outlined form slowly melted into the rest of the marabounta, and a bright light without concussion told Odd and Aelita she had been devirtualized.

The quiet chittering of someone being virtualized sounded above them, and Odd and Aelita looked up in time to see Ulrich drop from the sky and join the fray. "Nice of you to finally show up," Odd huffed as he shot again at the marabounta. Ulrich smiled apologetically at his friend, before viciously hacking at the approaching enemy line.

The Krab Jade rode was no longer lopingg at a steady pace, but was now crawling and lurching forward, trying to fight through the marabounta scaling it's legs.

"Jeremy, I think I see it," Jade breathed. Several yards ahead, a single orb floated above the others, periodically spitting out another cluster of marabounta.

"You've only got one shot." Jeremy warned. The Krab stopped moving forward, the marabounta finally overpowering it. It slowly sunk into the ground, the full body of the marabounta getting closer and closer to Jade. Her panic rose in her throat as she saw the black watery levels approach her. She breathed deeply, her right arm extended, her left paw holding her aim steady.

An icy cold tickle at her ankle caused her to scream in panic as she shot her Laser Arrow, the Krab fully disappearing beneath her.

An explosion of brilliant yellow and orange light blinded her, forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut against the brilliance. The entire world seemed to rock with the concussion, and Jade wondered if the force would obliterate Lyoko itself.

When the world stopped shaking, Aelita opened her eyes to a sight of relief. Nowhere around her was an oily sphere slinking towards her. The remaining Krab, Kankrelat, Blok, and Tarantula from the battle were lined up in front of her, their intense gazes locked on her.

"Be careful, Aelita," Ulrich warned, his blade still drawn. Odd raised her arm threateningly as well, aiming at the Blok's large Eye.

"Ulrich's right," Jeremy said from above as well. "X.A.N.A is still our biggest enemy and threat." Nothing moved in the entire forest sector. Each side appraised each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. After a few tense moments, all the monsters lowered their Eyes to the ground in a deep and respectful bow before skittering off, leaving the three Warriors to stare after them in awe.

Back in the forest of Kadic Academy, the sunshine and singing birds made Aelita think it seemed hardly impossible that such a terrible thing as the marabounta could exist in such a bright world. "Next time you wanna' play at being a mad scientist, clue us in next time, okay?" Odd joked as Yumi finished replacing the man hole cover over the sewer entrance.

"Hey, I really tried to," Jeremy said defensively, holding his hands palm up in surrender, "but you all had better things to do!" Jade rolled her eyes at Jeremy conspicuously, and Jeremy sighed in defeat. "But your right Odd. This time, I was a big zero, from start to finish."

"You found a way out of it Jeremy, that's what counts," Ulrich said comfortingly, throwing his arm around the slender boy's shoulders to try and reassure him. The young adults began walking back to the main grounds of campus, laughing and joking about their time on Lyoko as they exited the tree line. Sissy sat on a nearby bench, reading a magazine, and saw the strange group coming her way.

"Well, if it just isn't the whole weird crew," Sissy said loudly in a mocking tone.

"Well, if it isn't the brainless frog face," Odd shot back without a misstep.

"Ha, ha, ha, you crack me up," she snapped, crumpling her magazine and shooting to her feet. "By the way, Ulrich, are you feeling better after what happened at the pool?" She added, a snide smirk playing on her full lips.

"Cool it, Sissy," Ulrich growled, walking a little faster. When they were out of ear shot, Jeremy asked about what happened at the pool, to which Ulrich avoided the question.

"Come on, Ulrich, what happened at the pool?" Odd asked when a direct answer was evaded.

"NOTHING," Yumi and Ulrich shouted insistently, stalking up the stairs together in synch. Jade and Jeremy blinked at their backs in surprise, confused about their defensive tone.


	11. Attack of Zombies

**I love zombie apocalypse themed stories, movies, books, etc. I felt like there was no way I COULDN'T do this episode! Also, please note: for the Italian phrase, I typed in Odd's quote from the TV show into an online translator to try and get the Italian in print. However, just listening to what he says in the episode, and what the translator spat out, I can tell it isn't correct. But I tried! Enjoy!**

The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day for the students of Kadic Academy. Odd and Jade pushed and shoved each other as they raced from the classroom ahead of their classmates, sprinting to get outside first. When the twins finally sprang from the doors and out into the late afternoon sunshine, Odd whooped with joy. He spun around, his arms wide at his sides as he enjoyed the late spring sunshine, cheering with joy. His younger sister rolled her eyes at her obnoxious older brother and closed her eyes serenely, inhaling deeply, and enjoyed the sweet taste of the fresh air in her own manner.

"Hey, guys," Yumi called as she jogged from across campus to her younger friends. Ulrich, Jeremy, and Aelita all had sour faces as she approached. "So how'd the Italian test go?" Jeremy, Aelita, and Ulrich all exchanged frustrated glances, while the Della Robbia twins swelled with pride.

"I couldn't string two words together," Jeremy grumbled, scratching the back of his neck roughly in irritation.

"siete davvero zoppo in italiano , vecchio mio, Jeremy," Odd rattled off, a thick and rather over done Italian accent coating his words. The others stared at him blankly.

"What?" Jeremy asked, his tone completely flat.

"It means you're really bad at Italian, Jeremy, old buddy," Jade grinned quietly, flipping her bangs form her face with a toss of her head. Aelita and Ulrich snorted a chuckle as Jeremy groaned.

"You see?" Jeremy cried, waving at Odd wildly as he looked at Yumi. "I didn't even get that!"

"MY DEAR MILLY," came a high, nasal voice loudly across the courtyard, interrupting the Lyoko Warrior's discussion. "Your paper doesn't have any readers!" Sissy stood tall and proud over the younger newspaper editors, flipping her hair arrogantly as she belittled them. "Anyway, I don't need the whole school knowing what I think, so stop trying to interview me, understand?" she sneered.

"No danger of that, Sissy," Jade growled, her smile fading as she leaned against a light pole, shaking her head in disgust as she stared at the ground.

"Yeah, you'd need a brain to think!" Odd finished, propping an+ elbow on his sister's shoulder and leaning against her with a smirk.

"Good old Odd, funny as ever!" Sissy shouted back over Aelita and Ulrich's open laughter. "Do us all a favor, and shut up, will you?" Sissy stomped off, fleeing from Aelita and Ulrich's loud guffaws that followed after her.

"Ugh, I hate her," Milly hissed as she walked over to the group of six, her photographer in tow.

"You're not the only one," Jade nodded, glaring at the older girl's back as she walked further away, her two goons following obediently.

The group walked to grab dinner at the cafeteria as Yumi left for her home, and gradually the two younger girls drifted off to the dorms. "You're wrong, I tell you!" Odd's shout suddenly raised louder than the din of the countless clanking silverware, drawing the glances of a few students.

"I didn't say that Kiwi is stupid," Jeremy groaned, massaging his temples.

"You dug yourself a grave, Einstein," Ulrich grinned.

"You've really done it this time," Aelita agreed.

"No, you just called him _brainless_!" Odd accused, ignoring the commentary of the others.

"Well, if you throw a stick, he won't run and fetch it," Jeremy sighed, rolling his eyes.

"Well, neither would you!" Odd shot back. "Does that make _you_ brainless? Jeremy rolled his eyes again and continued eating, accepting with a silent honor the verbal beating Odd was giving him. "Hey, are you gonna' finish your chocolate pudding?" Odd suddenly interjected his own tirade, addressing Aelita.

"Isn't this going to be your fourth one tonight already?" Aelita laughed, handing Odd her half full cup.

"Odd's like a cow," Ulrich smiled as he finished eating his broccoli. "He has more than one stomach."

"The better to pig out with, my dear," Odd chuckled, shoving another spoonful in his mouth. The cafeteria doors slammed open then, and all commotion stopped as an ear-piercing scream shattered the normality. Milly came stumbling into the room with no shoes and only a white robe tight loosely around her, her dripping wet hair mixing with her hysterical tears as she wailed between sobs.

"Milly, what happened?" Aelita asked, the first one to move to comfort the girl. Milly threw herself into Aelita's arms, and instead of grasping her in a hug, as Jeremy had expected, she gripped Aelita's sleeves tightly, shaking the pink haired girl intensely.

"Please help," Milly begged, her eyes wild and wet. "Tamiya came after me!'

"Calm down, Milly," Aelita cooed, trying to stroke the younger students hair. "I'm sure-"

"She looked so scary," Milly shouted on, as if Aelita hadn't even spoken. "Her eyes were completely white and glowing, and her teeth were long and sharp, and she looked terrifying!" Rosa, the lunch lady, shook her head in irritation; when were these school pranks going to end?

"Calm down, your alright," Aelita said soothingly, trying to hold the girl together. "You must've had a bad dream." Jade shot Jeremy a meaningful look, and he yanked out his laptop to launch a Superscan. Aelita's ear peaked up when she heard a incessant beeping sound from Jeremy's speakers.

"Activated tower, good guess, Jade," Jeremy nodded, slamming his laptop shut as he rose from his seat.

"Let's head to the factory,"Ulrich whispered, standing as well. Odd pulled out his phone and called Yumi, updating her in seconds to the developing situation.

"Sissy, go get your father," Rosa called as she stirred the chili pot, unconcerned. "Tell him that there's either a student with a psychological break, or a silly prank about to occur."

"I'm not nuts!" Millie screeched as she tore from Aelita's embrace to challenge the lunch lady. As Millie began to shout down Rosa heatedly, Rosa mouthed the word, "Hurry", over Millie's red head. As Sissy grumbled and headed for the door, Ulrich and the other Lyoko Warriors followed after her.

"We'll go with you," Ulrich said. Sissy blossomed under his attention.

"We will?" Jade snorted, raising an eyebrow at her brother. Odd shrugged and they followed the principal's daughter out of the cafeteria. As they began making their way to the Administration building on campus, Jim came around a corner.

"Jim, there's a problem with Millie, and we…" Sissy's words rotted in her mouth. Jim began sprinting towards them, and Jeremy felt his stomach drop to his toes. Jim's skin was sagging and loose on his face, ashen grey and peeling. His eyes were glowing bright white, and his fingers were curled into claws. He snarled animalistically, and leapt for Sissy.

She screamed in terror and ran blindly into the woods, weaving between trees as she fled. "Sissy, wait!" Ulrich shouted as he chased after her. "Meet up at the factory!" Ulrich shouted back at his mates.

"Ulrich, be careful!" Jade demanded after him, her heart suddenly in her throat. Jim lunged for Jade, and Odd yanked her back by the elbow in the nick of time.

"Look, over there!" Jeremy wailed, pointing from where Jim had come. A mob of students and faculty, all with curved claws and glowing eyes, was crashing towards them.

"About face!" Jade commanded. "Jeremy, Aelita, get into the cafeteria!" As the two programmers ran back to shelter, the Della Robbia twins brought up the rear, guarding their backs. Jade round housed a ninth grade boy who got too close in the face, sending him sprawling and Odd shoved a math professor back as well.

When the four students spilled back into the cafeteria and slammed the door behind them in panic, Rosa's head shot up from where she was trying to comfort a still upset Milly. "What the..? What's going on?" Rosa stuttered.

"Oh, nothing," Odd huffed as he began stacking chairs in front of the door. "We're just, ya' know, surrounded by zombies ma'am." Rosa immediately fainted, and luckily, several students were able to catch the hefty lady and drag a chair beneath her dead weight.

The first clawed hand that slammed against one of the windows was directly beside Nicolas' face, causing him to cry out in fear as he fell to the floor, scrambling away. Quickly, more and more fists and gnashing teeth pressed themselves against the glass, trying to find purchase on the smooth surface. The students quaked with fear and huddled together in the center of the room, trying to stay as far away from the exterior glass as possible.

When the pounding suddenly stopped, Jade went and peered out the window. "They're leaving," she called back to the others.

"Yeah, but I'll bet they'll be back with reinforcements," Herb choked, trembling in panic. In a far corner of the room, William paced angrily, shouting into a phone impatiently.

"ZOMBIES! THAT'S RIGHT! As in, out of the tomb?" His hands waved wildly. "Send help immediately!" Across the room, a certain group of teenagers whispered calmly and quietly amongst themselves.

"I hope Ulrich got away alright," Jade moaned to her friends.

"Don't worry," Odd said comfortingly as he threw his arm around his sister's shoulders. "He's probably at the factory right now, and we've got to join him ASAP." The others nodded at him and rose to their feet. They walked to the door that led to the kitchens, and Odd reached out to grasp the door handle.

William shot across the room and slapped Odd's hand from the metal bar, using his body to block the exit. "Don't you touch him," Jade barked, standing in front of her brother defensively, her fists balled.

"Where do you think you're going?" William glared at her, staring down the younger and shorter girl.

"Uh, outside," Jeremy replied, trying to deescalate the situation. Aelita grabbed Jade's shoulder lightly, and the angry young woman backed down slowly.

"No way," William said, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his broad chest stubbornly. "It's way too dangerous."

"That's our problem," Odd quipped as he took a step back towards the door William was blocking.

"Stop," William nearly shouted. "I'm the oldest one here, and so I'm responsible for the group, and I'm telling you, no one is going anywhere until we get help! I don't want the zombies to get you, and what's more, if they attack the cafeteria again, we'll need as many of us here as possible."

"Who died and made you king?" Odd snapped, taking another step forward.

"Yeah, squash your ego, William, you only put on your big boy pants yesterday," Jade spat. By now, all the other students who had been eating dinner at the beginning of this horrid nightmare was watching the exchange.

"Anyone who tries to get out has to get past me first!" William shouted, addressing every person in the room. William glared at each student in turn, receive submissive nods from each, until he reached the Warriors. Each of them glared back challengingly.

"Great," Aelita hissed as William began trying to console a sobbing younger student. "William thinks he's Bruce Willis!"

"Just what we needed," Jeremy mumbled sarcastically, removing his glasses to clean them. "Well, there's only one thing left we can do." Across town, Yumi slid down a loose cable to the factory floor below, racing for the scanner room. In the forest, Ulrich and Sissy side stepped and tip toed around the living dead as they tried to make their way back to the lunch room.

"A supercomputer that lets you go into a virtual universe where you have to battle an evil enemy named X.A.N.A?" William cried incredulously, summing up the explanation Jeremy had given him.

"Well…yes," Jeremy nodded, realizing how crazed he sounded. "When you say it that way, I admit it sounds a little weird."

"If you want to stop this zombie attack, the four of us need to get to the factory now," Aelita nodded tersely.

"Look, I don't believe you," William said with a roll of his eyes. "So we're staying together!" William stomped off, muttering to himself about the youth watching too much science fiction, as if he wasn't only a year older.

"Alright, plan B," Odd grunted. "I'll distract him, and you three take off when he isn't looking." The others nodded in agreement, and Odd stalked up behind William, his chest puffed out. "Hey, idiot, you think you're the boss around here or something?" Every pair of eyes turned to watch the exchange as William turned around heatedly.

"Why yes," William hollered back. "I do, and I want all of us to get out of this unharmed!"4 "You think your some kind of-"

"William, their trying to get away!" Herb shouting in panic and cut off Odd's sentence, pointing to Jeremy as he tried to open the door silently. William charged across the room and gripped Jeremy roughly by his blue turtleneck.

"Jeremy!" Aelita screeched in fear. William lifted the frail boy from the linoleum floor and slammed him onto his back. Jade socked William in the gut, and William doubled over in surprise and pain. Odd slid across the floor and swept William's feet out from under him, bringing him crashing to the floor.

"Don't you _ever_ touch him again!" Jade shrieked, her brother and herself forming a body wall, blocking Jeremy from his assailant. William glared at the younger students in rage, wheezing as he tried to recover.

"Jeremy, are you alright?" Aelita gasped, cradling him.

"I think so," Jeremy winced, moving each of his limbs one at a time. He was definitely going to be bruised, but nothing more severe. Aelita's phone chimed, and she flipped it open immediately.

"Hello?... No, Ulrich, we aren't at the factory yet, this joker William won't let us leave," Aelita said the last part while glaring at William through the space between Jade and Odd's legs. "Okay…okay, we'll keep trying, but be careful." With that, Aelita snapped the phone shut. "Ulrich said he's going to try and help us out, but he's in a rough spot too." William was still cringing on the ground, and when the twins decided he wasn't still an immediate threat, they turned back to the two programmers.

"Alright, well, we'd better be careful too," Jeremy responded as Aelita helped him regain his feet, thinking more about William than the walking corpses.

"Kiwi?" Jade said incredulously, her eyes looking just behind her friends. Odd rounded, and there sat his sweet little dog.

"Look, he found me!" Odd cheered. "Look how smart he is, he came looking for me," Odd said to Jeremy. "You're so smart, my little diggity dog, yes you are!" Odd cooed, reaching to pick up the dog. Milly's heart stopped as she watched from across the room as William regained his feet.

"No, Odd, wait!" she cried. Kiwi shout forward, and sank it's fangs into his owner's hand. Odd shouted in surprise and pain, and then his hands shot to his head as his cries turned otherworldly and horrific.

"Why, you sneaky little-" William's words were cut off as Aelita pulled him away from Odd's tormented body. Jade dove for the dog as it turned to attack Nicolas next. With a mental apology to her beloved pet, Jade landed a heavy kick with her army boot clad foot in the pup's face. Kiwi yelped and fell to the floor, unconscious.

"William, stop it!" Aelita cried as he tried to lurch his fist at Odd's crippling form. "We've got to tie him up, we don't have time for revenge!" Jade removed her leather belt from her green and purple jeans and wrapped it around Kiwi's salivating muzzle several times before latching the prong into one of the holes, binding his jaws shut. She quickly put the dog in the unoccupied kitchen and closed the door on Kiwi's limp form, barricading the door with chairs so he couldn't get out. She felt bad about hurting her pet, but she was more concerned with her brother.

Odd screeched and shouted angrily, his claws trying to lash out at the students that held him pinned to the floor. "Watch out for his mouth!" someone shouted as Odd tried to sink his new, sharp fangs into another. His skin was the color of storm clouds and hung loosely from his cheekbones, his glowing white eyes just above the sagging flesh.

They quickly tied Odd's limbs to a chair, and placed him in the far corner, where he screamed and raged against his bindings. Aelita tied off the final knot on his wrist as William continued to struggle at grasping the situation. "So your saying that Kiwi bit Odd, infected him, and now he too is under the control of this digital virus named X.A.N.A?" he groaned, trying to wrap his mind around the idea.

"That's right," Jeremy nodded, glad that they seemed to be making headway. At that moment, curled fists and drooling fangs slammed against the windows and walls again as the zombies returned to their siege of the cafeteria.

"Great," Aelita growled, her usually light and sweet voice dripping with irritation. "What's more, we are now once again surrounded by an endless army of the undead."

"If you'd let us out earlier, we wouldn't be in this mess," Jade whispered, her voice hoarse as she tried to hold back her tears. She was so filled with rage, she could hardly keep herself from launching at William and teaching him a proper lesson. She wholly and fully blamed William for Odd's infection. If he'd let them leave the first time, they would have been long gone by the time that Kiwi snuck into the lunch room by unknown means.

"Listen!" William cried, raising his fists in anger and approaching the closest Lyoko Warrior to him, Aelita. Their sassy remarks irked his already on edge temper, and as he approached, Aelita shrank beneath him, feeling the unspoken threat in his body language. "If you'd left earlier, you might be a zombie yourself by now!"

"One of us already is a zombie, and it's because of you _forcing_ us to stay here," Aelita growled from beneath him as he towered above her, her anger making her ignore his larger size.

"Say one more word about a supercomputer or a factory, see what happens!" William hollered down at her, finally voicing an ominous warning. Jade slipped between the two and shoved William back, causing him to stumble as she charged forward.

"Give me one more good reason to teach you a lesson," Jade sneered as she stood on her tip toes, shoving her face directly into the much taller boy's face. Jeremy helped Aelita back to her feet. "I've already told you not to touch us again, your stupidity already hurt my brother, and I'm itching to knock a pretty tooth of yours from that perfect smile, so I say it again: give me one more good reason. I. Dare. You," she said, jabbing him roughly in the chest with a sharp nail on each of the last three words.

William opened his mouth to respond, but his words were cut off as Herb threw open the front doors to the lunch room. "What are you doing?" William cried as someone came crashing in, her long black hair streaming behind her. "She could be-"

"I'm not one of them, you pea brained dork!" Sissy shouted back as she closed the door behind her. Nicolas and Herb began to reconstruct the barricade immediately as Sissy continued, "I was able to get through 'cause Ulrich lead them away."

The sound of fracturing glass sounded, and clawed grey arms began waving through the hole in the wide window. Chaos ensued as students screamed and ran around, trying to escape as zombies began trying to force their way into the stronghold. In the madness, no one noticed three students slipping out the side door and sneaking through the evening shadows into the park.

As Jeremy ran, he left a painful side stitch developing, right under his ribs, making it harder to breathe. Jade wrangled any undead that came to close, and soon they were in the sewers. They charged into the factory, and when the elevator doors opened into the program room, Yumi stood up from where she sat on the floor, waiting for them. "There you all are!" she exclaimed. "Ulrich just called me. William has been zombified, so Ulrich is taking over command at the school, and helping to reinforce the lunch room."

"Serves him right, after what a jerk he was," Jade growled, crossing her arms as Yumi traded places with Jeremy in the elevator.

"Never mind that now," Jeremy said to Jade. "You three head to the scanners, and I'll boot up the virtualization process." When the doors closed and the elevator began sinking to the lower room, Yumi asked where Odd was. Jade tried to explain his situation, but her throat closed with a knot and unshed tears. Aelita squeezed Jade's shoulder comfortingly as she took over for the distraught girl, and explained to Yumi what had happened to the older Della Robbia twin.

"I'm so sorry," Yumi said to Jade, placing her hand on Jade's other shoulder. Jade shook off both hands, glaring at the floor as the doors opened to the yellow-lit scanner room.

"Let's just hurry and get this done," she hissed, stalking to the first available scanner.

"Looks like a girl's only vacation," Aelita smiled as she stepped into her scanner, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, no boy's allowed," Yumi agreed, sneaking a peek at Jade across the room to see her expression.

"Sorry, ladies, but I'm still here," Jeremy chuckled from the programming room, his voice coming over the speakers. "Transfer, Aelita. Transfer, Yumi. Trans…" The world fell away, and Yumi couldn't hear Jeremy's soothing voice anymore as she felt her muscles relax and eventually fall apart. She began to feel uncomfortable as the air in her deconstructed lungs grew stale. She needed fresh air. She needed fresh oxygen. Her lungs were burning, _burning_ , when her eyes suddenly shot open, and she took a deep, refreshing breath as she fell from the Lyoko sky and landed elegantly on the floor of the desert sector. "Here's your carriages, your highnesses," Jeremy sang from above as the Overwing and Draftboard materialized before them.

"You're getting really good at this, Jeremy," Yumi smiled. "Soon we'll be landing right on top of them!"

"Hurry up," Jade snapped, unceremoniously hopping on her ride. "We've got a tower to deactivate." Aelita and Yumi shared a sheepish look at taking the serious situation so lightly before boarding the Overwing together and following their serious friend. They headed north for several minutes, before Jade called back, saying, "Activated tower in sight."

"Krabs also in sight," Aelita responded as Yumi and she pulled up broadside to Jade.

"Better hurry," Jeremy choked from earth. "Kiwi and some other zombies are making their way here to the factory, I can see them on the security cameras. If I get bitten, I won't be able to launch a Return to the Past, and, well…"

"Then we'd better pick up the pace," Yumi said to her soldier and her charge. Both girls nodded in response as they circle the tower high above the Krabs, which watched intensely from below. "Let's go!" Yumi and Jade yanked their steeds into a bomber dive before sharply pulling up, inches from the ground, using the gathered speed to shoot forward aggressively. The Krabs shot multiple lasers, but the Lyoko Warriors were moving faster than they were accustomed too, and each laser missed its mark as the humans bared down on the monsters. With a shout of war, Yumi tossed a fan, and Jade launched a Laser Arrow. Both projectiles buried themselves into the same monster, destroying one of the three.

They pulled up at last second, the bottom of Jade's Draftboard scraping the hood of a Krab, sparking magnificently. They flew vertically into the air, the Krabs shooting lasers after them, chasing them in the sky. One laser sank into Yumi's leg, causing her to wince in pain. Again, Yumi led a bomber dive assault, this time falling directly on top of their adversaries. The Krabs danced below them, evading the attack until Yumi and Jade had to again pull up to avoid a kamikaze end.

They flew away from the tower, trying to come up with a different approach, when Aelita tugged on Yumi's sleeve. "Yumi, one's hot on our tail," she whimpered. Yumi peeked behind her, and sure enough, one Krab was loping after them, the other remaining to guard the tower.

"Quick, let's get to that canyon!" Jade shouted, leading the other's into the shade of the rising cliffs. The Krab followed them in, struggling to follow in the tight quarters. It's hood scraped and nicked the rock walls, dust falling on it as it struggled on. "And… Now!" Jade called. Both Yumi and Jade about faced, charging the Krab when it could hardly move. The monster shot wildly, and by luck, buried a laser in the Overwing.

The machine bucked and kicked, tossing Aelita and Yumi into the dust before exploding midair. Jade slalomed side to side, dodging the onslaught and making her way towards her enemy. She flew above it, barrel rolled above the creature's hood, and bulls-eyed the X.A.N.A Eye on the top of the creature.

It exploded gloriously behind her as she righted her Draftboard, the sky no longer beneath her as the world flipped correctly. "Wow, that was great!" Yumi cried as she ran up to her friend.

"Yeah, that was really cool," Aelita chirped beside Yumi.

"Come on," Jade said flatly, her eyes hard and angry. "Let's finish this nightmare." Jade left her Draftboard behind, as it couldn't bear the weight of three people, and ran with the others, trying to get free of the canyon's tall walls.

"Oh, no, what is this?" Yumi groaned, skidding to a stop. Before them, only miles of Digital Sea expanded. No final Krab, and no tower. "Did we run the wrong way?" Aelita closed her eyes, and focused her energy, searching with her Creativity for…something.

"There," Aelita pointed. "The tower is still there."

"Where?" Jade asked, squinting. "I don't see anything!"

"It's there, trust me," Aelita said. "How are we going to get to it?" Although the faint outline and location of the tower was still in Aelita's mind, yards of orange, digital vile was between her and it.

"I could run and grab my Draftboard," Jade offered.

"No, that'll take too long!" Yumi said, shaking her head. "I'll teletransport Aelita!"

"You're crazy!" Jeremy shrieked from above. "If you fail, she'll fall and be devirtualized forever in the Digital Sea!"

"I trust her, Jeremy," Aelita sighed, "nervous" not even beginning to describe the knot in her stomach. Jade stood back, crossing her paws over her chest as she watched anxiously, her tail twitching sporadically. Yumi squeezed her eyes shut and began to glow a light pink in focus as Aelita was lifted up high and over the edge, dangling above the Digital Sea.

Things were going well, and Aelita was halfway across the D=distance she needed to cover when Jade heard a mechanical scraping of metal legs rubbing together. "Yumi, look out!" Jade shouted, diving and using her body as a shield. The laser bit into her stomach, aching and making her sore.

"What's…happening?" Yumi strained, trying to maintain her focus.

"The other Krab," Jade hissed, boucing up and onto all fours, a feral hiss ripping from her throat at the huge monster. "Get Aelita to the tower!" The Krab shot again and again at Jade as she weaved about beneath it, dodging carefully, but she couldn't get an angle. The platform outside of the canyon was too small for proper combat and movement. No matter where Jade scampered to, she was always underfoot of the towering brute. She was beneath, and the Eye was on top; she couldn't get a shot.

"Here goes nothing," Jade groaned. She launched herself onto the Krab's legs, digging her dagger like claws into it's metal leg, ripping into it. The Krab swung it's leg, tossing her into the canyon wall. Her back cracked against it, and she fell heavily to the ground, a puff of dust flying around her. The Krab reared above her and crashed down with its sharp appendage, trying to spear the feline as Jade rolled barely free of the danger.

"Jade, be careful!" Jeremy howled from his chair. "That impact against the rock cost you thirty life points!"

"Climbing up a Krab isn't the same as scaling a ladder, Jeremy!" Jade snapped back. She dug into another leg and began skittering up. She clambered onto the bucking Krab's hood, digging her claws into it to hold her steady. "Laser Arrow!" she shouted, embedding the dart into the Eye's center. Jade's eyes immediately searched for a place to jump free to. Anywhere, anywhere… there was nowhere. The Krab took up the entire platform, so she couldn't jump onto that. To the right was the Digital Sea's waves, and to the left were the stark canyon walls. She couldn't throw herself against the wall again and survive, she didn't have enough lifepoints.

The Krab exploded, and the force devirtualized not only Jade on top of it, but also Yumi, who was slightly beneath it. Both girls tried to scream in pain and panic, but their voices were lost as their mouths, tongues, and lungs fell apart into shining light blue particles. Their bodies whirred away, back to their home planet. When the scanners sighed and injected them back into their mortal bodies, they were weak and disoriented. Above, in the programming room above, Jade could hear shuffling footsteps. They zombies had made their way into the factory, and were in Jeremy's room.

"Yumi…Jeremy needs help," Jade croaked. Across the room, Yumi mumbled unintelligently, unconscious still. Jade pushed with her hands, trying to gain her feet, only to find she was too weak. Her hands gave out beneath her, and her face crashed into the cement floor. Her nose exploded with pain, and Jade's consciousness drifted to blank as she passed out from overexertion.

Back on Lyoko, Aelita couldn't believe her luck. After the other gals had been devirtualized, she had plummeted to the orange liquid below, and she had been certain she was going to die, lost forever in the never ending world wide web, her particles separated and never again reunited. Instead, she'd stopped quite painfully and suddenly, several feet above the sunset waters below.

"Jeremy, it's another of X.A.N.A's tricks," she breathed in relief. "The ground, it's here, just invisible."

"Hurry!" Jeremy shouted from above. A commotion sounded across the connection, and a struggle ensued that Aelita could hear, but couldn't understand.

"Jeremy? Jeremy?" Aelita cried. On Earth, Jeremy smacked away the groping claws, struggling as countless hands pulled at him, trying to bring his flesh to their teeth.

"MOVE!" Jeremy bellowed to the girl in the computer. Kiwi sank his fangs into Jeremy's ankle, and Jeremy yelped in pain. Aelita jumped at his sudden command as it boomed around her. She sprinted to the tower, racing time and an unknown threat. On Earth, Jeremy could feel his brain growing muddy and confused as the virus penetrated his blood system, zooming to every cell in his body. Aelita sprang into the tower, calling Jeremy's name, asking what was happening, if he was alright.

Jeremy's head was exploding in pain. A quiet whisper, from the corner of his conscious, tempted him darkly, telling him to walk away from the keyboard. Jeremy felt his control slipping; he should just walk away from the computer. Who really cared about computers anyway? What could honestly matter so much? He should just get up and walk away…he could just go to the scanner room, to those two girls there...what were their name again? It didn't matter. He could just climb down the ladder, go to those girls…feed on them….

Someone, far away, was calling his name. The voice was so…sweet. He could listen to that voice all day. He loved this voice. Someday, he wanted to wake up next to the person who owned this voice. But that wasn't important anymore. What was important now was walking away, going down the ladder, and-

"JEREMY, TOWER DEACTIVATED," Aelita screeched. Jeremy's hand, hardly his own anymore, as the rest of his body was now X.A.N.A's, slammed onto the "enter" button. The pure white light flooding the area from the center of the programming room, where the hole in the floor connected via wires Jeremy's master monitors and keyboard to the Supercomputer's tower two floors down. The light expanded out, out from the factory and covered the Earth, a disinfectant wipe cleansing the whole world of the past hours' events.

When Ulrich opened his eyes, he was back at the Kadic courtyard, and Italian had just ended. "You see? I didn't even get…that," Jeremy faltered, his eyebrow furrowing. Those who travel to Lyoko can reminisce on what occurs before a Return to the Past, but being the Lyoko Warrior to only have traveled to Lyoko once, he had trouble remembering their adventures. However, unlike the rest of the populous, he could barely remember what happened before time's reversal, through a sense of déjà vu. To everyone outside their friend group, this day was brand new. To the Warriors, it was a repeat, and to Jeremy, it was a slightly familiar shadow that he could barely recall. "That felt… familiar," Jeremy continued slowly. He turned to Aelita, asking, "is that supposed to feel familiar?"

"I'll explain what happened later," Aelita grinned, adding, "at least, the parts you don't remember." Across the courtyard, Sissy was berating Millie again pompously, clueless as to the fact that she had done all this before. She stomped away from the younger girls, and across the courtyard, William was checking his phone.

"You know," Jade sneered looking at him, "I think I might've found someone I dislike as much as Sissy."

"Who? William?" Yumi asked with a raised eyebrow. "What'd he do to you?"

"Honey, you have no idea," Odd laughed with a shake of his head. Yumi pressured Jade into sharing what happened between her and William, and Jade stubbornly shook her head, glaring at him across the way as she put her arm around her brother protectively.


	12. XANA's Kiss

**Honestly, this episode is my favorite out of all of them. The confusion, the heartbreak, the sheer frustration as you watch!**

"Jean?" Ulrich asked doubtfully.

"Yupp," Odd smiled, relaxed and confident.

"Asra?" Jeremy inquired incredulously. "Claire?" Odd winked at Jeremy silently, confirming both of those girls as well. "Lola?" Jeremy stuttered in surprise.

"Double yeah!" Odd laughed, shrugging nonchalantly.

"So you've dated every girl in the eighth grade?" Ulrich gasped, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Everyone except Heidi," Odd smirked, his chest puffing up in pride.

"Are you trying to set a record or something?" Jeremy laughed, shaking his head.

"No way," Odd said. His outward demeanor showed that he wasn't truly interested in the conversation, but in all honesty, he was loving it. He was loving the attention, the surprised looks he was getting from his pals. "I'm just looking for…true love." Jeremy felt jealous of Odd; the class clown seemed to always know what to say to the ladies, while Jeremy always fumbled with his words around Aelita. Jeremy didn't want any other girl but her. If he could just kiss that one girl…

"Well, look whose here," sang a soprano nasal that shattered Jeremy's day dream. "My dear Ulrich, wanna' go see a movie with me this afternoon?" Sissy asked, flinging her long, black hair over her shoulder.

"That would depend on what's playing," Ulrich replied, sharing a hidden smirk with Odd.

"Adventure in the Tropics!" Sissy chimed, beaming at the opportunity that seemed to present itself.

"Oh, bummer!" Ulrich sighed theatrically. "I've already seen it! What a shame." Ulrich led the other young men with him into the showers, leaving a dejected eighth grade girl behind. Odd smiled as he heard Herb and Nicolas try and convince Sissy to go see the movie with them. The young men began brushing their teeth, and the door swung open again, permitting both Herb and Nicolas as well. The two awkward boys avoided the Lyoko Warriors and began flossing in the mirrors clear on the other side of the lavatory.

"So you really went to go see 'Adventure in the Tropics'?" Odd snorted finally, the curiosity killing him. Ulrich shot Odd a sidelong glance of disbelief, then stooped to spit out the bubbles in his mouth.

"You crazy?" Ulrich laughed, wiping stray spittle away with the back of his hand as he straightened. "I'd rather study for a math quiz than go see a movie with Sissy." A few moments passed as Ulrich tugged his hair into perfection in the mirror, then Herb's reflection appeared behind Ulrich in the looking glass, and his pimpled face was red with anger.

"You just make me sick, Stern!" Herb shouted, his fragile fists balled tightly. "You think your some real hot stuff, but I'm going to knock that smug smile right off your face!" Ulrich snorted incredulously at Jeremy and Odd, who both rolled their eyes, before turning and facing Herb openly. Ulrich leaned casually against the sink, comfortable and patient.

"Well, go ahead then, we are all waiting," Ulrich egged Herb on as the seconds ticked by uneventfully. Herb's jaw tightened and his untrained fist flew wildly through the air. Ulrich side stepped it easily, and Herb's bony wrist slammed into the basin of the porcelain sink. He erupted into painful wails as Nicolas led his pal from the water closet comfortingly.

"Boy, jealousy really makes people go crazy," Odd chuckled, spiking up his hair into its regular tower.

"Well," Jeremy said, patting his freshly cleaned face dry with a paper towel, "not that this tom foolery isn't amusing but I've gotta' get down to breakfast."

"Where's the fire?" Odd called after Belpois as he jogged away.

"No fire, it's just…Aelita likes croissants with her hot chocolate, and I promised her I'd give her mine today." Jeremy quickly turned about and headed for his room, trying to hide his blush.

"Love plays tricks on your mind," Ulrich sighed, wiping his own face clean. Several minutes later, Jade and Aelita were eating breakfast in the cafeteria, waiting with growing impatience for the boys to join them.

"Odd probably slept in again," Jade grumbled, yawning behind a palm.

"But I wonder where Jeremy is," Aelita mused, looking at the morning sky out the wide window. "He's usually here the same time as us."

"They got held up, Odd texted me," Jade chuckled, running her fingers through her purple and green hair. "They were trapped by Sissy and her goons in the hallway, had to talk to her for a few."

"You don't say?" Aelita grinned, raising a pink eyebrow. "What exactly happened?"

"They were heading to the showers when- hey, there's Jeremy!" Jade exclaimed, pointing out the window. Jeremy was stalking across the outdoor courtyard towards the cafeteria, and behind him by many yards, Odd and Ulrich followed. "I wonder why they aren't…."Heidi, who stood by the cafeteria doors, began speaking to Jeremy. Jade couldn't hear through the glass, but instead of responding quickly and politely as jade expected and joining her and Aelita inside…Jeremy forcefully grabbed Heidi's face and pressed his lips to hers. Jade froze in shock; _everyone_ knew how Aelita and Jeremy felt about each other. Jade snuck a peak at Aelita, hoping she hadn't seen anything. Aelita's face was corrupt with betrayal, confusion, and despair. "I'm sure he-" Aelita shot from her seat, cutting off Jade's words, threw her food, including the tray, into the rubbish as she ran by the bin, and dodged out the back door.

Across the courtyard, Odd and Ulrich froze and Jeremy deepened the intimacy, pulling her body even closer. Odd felt his heart thump angrily; he was supposed to be meeting Heidi for breakfast. Jeremy broke the lip lock, shot Odd an uncharacteristically cocky wink, then ran away, disappearing behind a building. Heidi blinked in confusion, rubbing her lips, as if wondering if it had been real.

"I…I can't believe it!" Odd stuttered to Ulrich, who stood dumbfounded beside him. "That sneaky little creep!" Had Jeremy really been just a player, a ladies' man, all along?

"I didn't know that Yumi and Mathias Durrell were dating," A upperclassman speculated as he walked by, oblivious to the plight of the two Warriors before them.

"Neither did I," a younger male student said with a shrug as he stepped in time with his buddy, "but I saw them making out by the vending machine five minutes ago!" If Ulrich hadn't been shocked at Jeremy's actions, he felt his joints lock now. How… how could she hurt him like that?

Odd and Ulrich blinked at each other, dazed. They stumbled into the lunch room, and found Jade sitting alone, staring at her plate blankly. Jade looked up as they approached, and saw the unanswered question on their faces. "Yeah, I saw what Jeremy did," she huffed. Jade wondered how, after being so smart, he could be such an idiot. Did he have any idea how much he meant to Aelita?

Outside, Jeremy finally exited the dormitories, whistling a jolly tune as he began to skip to the lunch room. To his left, a dab of pink in a green landscape caught his eye. "Hey, Aelita, wait up!" Jeremy called, jogging to catch up. "Where are you going? I thought we were meeting in the cafeteria."

"Oh, I saw you outside the cafeteria, alright," Aelita spat. Her voice sounded funny, like she was choking.

"Aelita, are you alright?" Jeremy asked, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. Aelita turned around and glared at Jeremy, tears sneaking down her face.

"Get away from me," she groaned, her voice both a hiss of anger and a mewl of pain. Jeremy blinked in confusion. "I'm not an idiot, so don't treat me like one!"

"Of course you're not," Jeremy said, his eyes wide as he held his hand up in a position of surrender. "You're the smartest person I know! I'd never treat you like a fool!"

"That's rich," Aelita cried, turning her back on him. "Tell the next girl you trick the same thing, I bet she'll believe your innocent little act too."

"What are you talking about?" Jeremy begged, trying to keep up with her as she stomped away.

"Why don't you just ask Heidi's pretty lips? You seem well acquainted already!" With that, Aelita ran off. Jeremy tried to follow her, but his own mind was whirling with confusion. To his right, Yumi was jogging up to him, her face held in an expression of bewilderment.

"Hey Jeremy," she huffed. "Mind explaining to me what's going on, what's been happening these past few hours? I just tried to talk to the others, and they all gave me the cold shoulder."

"Why's that?" Jeremy inquired, still wheeling from Aelita's accusations.

"Rumor has it that I'm dating Mathias Durrell."

"Wow," Jeremy leaned back in surprise. "Well, rumor has it that I kissed Heidi Klinger." Yumi blinked in surprise before falling in step beside Jeremy, both of them outcasts of their regular friend group. Across campus, Jade snuck away from Odd; it wasn't hard to do, since he was so internally wrapped up in the occurrences with Heidi. She needed to talk to Ulrich. She wasn't sure what was going on, but none of them had actually seen Yumi kiss Mathias…maybe it was all a mistake. She couldn't bear the cold shoulders and silent treatment they were giving Yumi; she was their best friend! Across the way, Jade spotted his tan over shirt.

"Hey, Ulrich," Jade called, "I need to talk to you!" Ulrich turned at his name, but instead of greeting Jade, he scowled at her, abruptly turning his back on her and walking away. "Ulrich! Hey wait up!" Jade began to jog, trying to catch up with him, wondering why he was avoiding her. Yeah, hearing that Yumi was dating someone else sucked, but he didn't have to treat everyone so….

Ulrich ensnared his fingers in Sissy's hair and pulled her down into a deep kiss. Herb and Nicolas, who had been chatting with her besides the anatomy building, froze in confusion and surprise, their eyes wide with disbelief. Jade skidded to a stop. Her heart shattered as her brows knitted together in shock. Ulrich pulled back from his kiss and turned, making eye contact with Jade, ensuring she'd seen his actions, before smirking and laughing at her.

Jade felt confusion, fear, panic, betrayal. She hadn't told anyone but her brother about her crush on Ulrich. How had he found out? For how long had he known? And Jade had never done anything to Ulrich, why was he purposely cackling at her pain? Pain he crafted by kissing her daily tormentor, her nemesis, the person she despised most? Jade turned and fled the campus, locking her dorm room door behind her as she slid down against it, sobbing silently. The bell signaling for first period rang, and Jade pulled herself quickly together as she made her way to class, going through the motions numbly.

Jeremy sat anxiously in his seat; prior to classes starting, he hadn't been all alone, he had Yumi. Both of them were victims of rumors without origin, and had taken solace in expressing their confusion to each other. Now that class had started, and Yumi was a year older, Jeremy was back in the frying pan. His friends eventually stumbled in, and he felt like choking. "Ae-Aelita, can we talk?"

"We are in class," Aelita snapped, glaring at him; her eyes were puffy and red. Ulrich grumpily took his seat beside Jeremy, and Odd took his seat beside his sister, often leaning around her to glare at Jeremy accusingly. Aelita sat behind them by herself, one row back and to the left of Jeremy, her face buried in her textbook, hiding her expression.

"Why'd you go and kiss Heidi?" Ulrich finally hissed halfway through class, his eyes hard and staring straight forward.

"I did _not_ kiss Heidi," Jeremy growled back, scribbling notes angrily.

"Jeremy, we all saw you!" Ulrich insisted, turning to glare at his thin friend. "It wasn't a very nice thing to do to Odd, kissing her while she waited for their date and while he was watching!"

"And what about you?" Jeremy shot back. "What you did to Jade is what you call 'nice'?"

"What? Jade? What'd I do?" Ulrich blinked, his hard expression falling away to reveal cluelessness.

"Kissing Sissy in front of her?" Jeremy glared back harshly. "How long have you known how she feels about you?"

"I didn't kiss Sissy," Ulrich exclaimed, his voice raising a little in volume. Jade flinched; she didn't want the reminder of what was already burned into her brain.

"I _saw_ you," Jeremy quipped back.

"Odd, back me up here," Ulrich said, turning to his best friend. "I didn't-" Odd turned and shot the nastiest look Ulrich had ever seen his face make. Odd threw his arm protectively around his sister, and Jade leaned into his embrace, mortified. How long had Jeremy known? Did _everyone_ know? Aelita pouted silently, trying to ignore the conversation.

The class ended, and Aelita shot out the door before any other student, and cowered from the public eye in her room. Jade yearned to follow her; she felt Aelita was the only one who hadn't betrayed her thus far. She didn't know who to trust, seeing as Odd must've told Jeremy about her feelings for Ulrich, Ulrich maliciously kissed her worst enemy in front of her, Yumi was sneaking around behind Ulrich's back, and Jeremy had kissed Heidi and offended Odd. She felt that Aelita was the only pure one, until she walked outside.

Aelita buried her lips against Nicolas suddenly, in front of the entire eighth grade class, and in clear sight of Jeremy. Geez, was there no one Jade could trust? Aelita broke the kiss, met Jeremy's eyes, before sticking her nose in the air and stalking away. Around him, students began to snicker and whisper Jeremy's name, some saying they pitied him, others saying he deserved it for forcing himself on Heidi and stealing Odd's date. Jade was filled with anger at everyone and stomped away heatedly. Ulrich tried to walk with Odd, but Odd shouted at him to go find someone else to victimized, still angry with how Ulrich played his sister, and so Ulrich went on his own. The Lyoko Warriors, for the first time since they'd met, found solace not in each other, but away from each other.

At the same moment, Aelita was crying in her bed, cradling Mr. Puck in her arms. After a few minutes, she decided she needed to clear the air with Jeremy, and give him a chance to explain. She stood on shaky legs, and headed upstairs to the boy's hall. She found Jeremy just as he was disappearing into his room. "Jeremy," she called, and he halted in the doorway, waiting as she approached. "I'm sorry for how I acted in class… you wanted to talk to me?" She couldn't help but notice how…pained he looked, like something was tearing him apart inside.

"Yeah," he strained, "let's talk about you and Nicolas."

"Nicolas," Aelita said flatly as she came to a stop before him, innocent of what he was referring to.

"I sure hope he's better at kissing than he is at math," Jeremy spat, a single tear streaking from behind his lenses.

"What are you talking about?" Aelita demanded, her own temper flaring. "I never kissed Nicolas!" Jeremy looked at her with pure disgust, his nose crinkling in distaste.

"I don't believe this!" Jeremy raged, his voice ringing up and down the long hall. "First you kiss Nicolas, the biggest loser in the whole school, and then you lie about it?"

"Jeremy," Aelita growled, her voice turning to a shriek to match her crushes'. "I've told you the truth!"

"Incredible," Jeremy laughed cruelly, more tears streaming down his face freely now. "First you humiliate me in public, then you lie to me, and now you somehow think you're trustworthy? How could you do that?" Aelita opened her mouth, a heated reply forming, when Jeremy's voice suddenly grew deadly quiet in ringing silence.

"You…you really let me down," Jeremy choked, wiping away tears roughly. "You have no idea how much either." He quietly close his bedroom door behind him, leaving Aelita alone in the hall, and she much would've preferred if he had called her some awful name and slammed the door. Because if he had slammed it, Aelita could've remained enraged. Had he shown an act of violence and aggression, Aelita could've pounded on the wood, shouted something nasty back.

But he hadn't. He'd closed the door as gently and as quietly as the breaking of his own heart. The heat left her, leaving her cold, bitter, confused, and alone. She turned and began running blindly, her blurry vision from her tears blinding her so much that she didn't notice that she ran past Jade down the stairs. Jade thought about calling out, trying to follow her, but from the racking sobs that shook her best friend's body, Jade decided against it. It looked like everyone just needed to be alone.

In Jeremy's room, pillows flew randomly as he chucked them about. Feathers flew, and hardcover textbooks banged onto the floor. Jeremy raged in an unfamiliar anger that he hadn't felt before; so this was jealousy. His computer began beeping alarmingly, and Jeremy's eyes widened with sudden understanding. This whole day was one big misunderstanding.

"I'm telling you, I never kissed Sissy!" Ulrich insisted to Yumi, scowling up at the older girl.

"Yeah, well, I'm definitely not dating Mathias, and I most certainly wasn't making out with him by the soda machine!" Yumi shouted back. Her phone rang, and when she answered it curtly, Ulrich had no idea who was on the other end of the line. However, from the way her eyes widened, Ulrich guessed it was important. "Okay, I'll call the twins." Yumi dialed rapidly and waited.

"How could you do that?" Jade wailed in her room, curled up on her bed. "How could you tell Jeremy?"  
"Jade, I didn't tell anybody anything," Odd insisted, trying to wrap his arms around his baby sister.

"Get off me!" she roared, tearing away his embrace. "Obviously Jeremy knew I like Ulrich, and the only person who I told was you! Who I TRUSTED!"

"Jade, I…" Odd didn't know what to say. It was obvious Jeremy knew about Jade's emotions, but Odd had never told him, and now, Ulrich knew too. His phone rang, and more to himself than to his sibling, he said, "It's Yumi." He flicked the device opened and listened carefully. "Come on," Odd finally said, hauling his sister to her feet although she began to growl in protest. "Lyoko business, we are meeting in the forest." They jogged into the tree line, and made their way to the manhole. Around it, Ulrich and Yumi stood awkwardly, tension thick in the air. When Odd and Jade came into sight, Ulrich's hard gaze softened. He had never known… how was he supposed to have guessed…? He opened his mouth, about to apologize to Jade for something that he didn't even do when Jeremy broke the silence, winded from the short run.

"Right," he gasped, "I can explain everything. The Super Scanner has picked up an activated tower. All this kissing is another one of X.A.N.A's schemes that-"

"Convenient excuse, Belpois," Odd sneered, "but it won't get you outta' trouble. X.A.N.A can't control us, your responsible for you actions."

"I know that," Jeremy snapped, trying to remain calm. "But I also know I DID NOT KISS HEIDI, so there must be a Jeremy clone somewhere."

"And one for the rest of us as well," Yumi gasped, nodding in understanding. The atmosphere in the group immediately changed and all of the Warriors present felt more relaxed, all save for the elephant in the room; Jade's secret that had been revealed in all the trickery.

"X.A.N.A must've sent the polymorph here to divide and conquer us," Ulrich groaned, trying to meet Jade's eye apologetically. Jade stared stubbornly at the ground.

"We've gotta' go to Lyoko and solve this," Odd declared. "Where's Aelita? Did anyone call her?"

"I did," Jeremy gulped, "but her phone's off, and she… she ran off."

"Oh, bravo!" Yumi cheered mockingly. "Where did she go?"

"I… I don't know," Jeremy shook his head miserably.

"I…I think I do," Jade offered quietly. The others followed her lead, weaving through the maze of the school's forest that eventually transformed from neat and well maintained to wild and unruly as they left campus. When they arrived at the Hermitage, Jeremy held up his hand, halting the group.

"I…I think I I'd better go in first, alone. I'll bring her out," Jeremy muttered. When the group looked at him strangely, he blushed vibrantly and tried to hide his expression. "I'm the one who made this mess with her… I just want a moment alone with her to apologize." Jeremy began to stride nervously to the manor when the front door opened, and the group was met with a confusing sight; Jeremy was both heading towards the front door, and leading Aelita outside and through it, in the exact same moment.

"Ae…Aelita?" The Jeremy who had been with the other Warriors spluttered.

"Jeremy?" Aelita squeaked in fear; her eyes darted between the two identical Jeremy's, the one whose eyes were wild with worry for her and was reaching out, and the one holding her hand, trying to shield her with his body.

"Get back!" said the Jeremy who held Aelita's palm. "It's X.A.N.A! He's made a clone of me to trick you!" Yumi felt her stomach tighten; which was the real Jeremy? Was it the one protecting Aelita, and she, Jade, Ulrich, and Odd had all been fooled by the polymorph? Or was Aelita in the literal grasp of the enemy?

"Don't listen to him, Aelita," the Jeremy who had transverse the forest with the Warriors said. "He's X.A.N.A's!"

"Wh…which is which?" Ulrich stuttered, his head whipping back and forth.

"I don't know, they look and sound the same!" Odd shrieked.

"Aelita," the Jeremy who was reaching out to Aelita said, "please, trust me."

"Don't listen to him, he's an imposter!" the Jeremy who clutched Aelita close countered, pushing her even further behind him, and further from both the other Warriors and the other Jeremy. "I'm the real one, you know I am! I kissed you!" Odd felt his stomach drop to his shoes; he'd been privy to many conversations in secrecy. The way Jeremy talked about Aelita…it was like she was on a pedestal above all others, like she was the only light he saw in a world of dark. He treasured Aelita above all things, and Odd knew that Jeremy wouldn't be so imposing as to kiss Aelita without first asking permission fervently, nor would the real Jeremy lord it over her as a weapon to earn her trust. The fake Jeremy had his wrist wrapped around Aelita's wrist, and they were all in big trouble.

"That's right," Aelita gasped, her eyes wide. "You did kiss me, and the real Jeremy would've never made our first kiss like that!" She tried to yank her arm away, but the clone, his eyes darkening with the sigil of X.A.N.A, tightened its grip on her until she cried out in pain; it felt like her wrist was going to explode.

Everyone rushed forward to defend Aelita, but the least likely brawny warrior, Jeremy himself, was suddenly as fast as lightening and as strong as an ox with his desperation to save his friend, as he beat all the others to the polymorph. "GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!" Jeremy roared, his bony fist crashing into the clone's nose powerfully.

"Nice job, Superman!" Yumi cheered, pulling Aelita free from the monster's grasp as it crashed to the ground, its hands rushing to its face as it shrieked otherworldly in pain.

"Aelita, are you okay?" Jeremy whimpered, wrapping his arms around her in the most tender of hugs.

"I am," Aelita whispered, only for him to hear, before pulling back. "But we'd better all get to the factory!"

"You guys go ahead," Odd said, crouching into a fighting stance as the clone began to rise back to its feet.

"Yeah, we'll take care of this clown," Jade huffed, balling her fist beside her. The others ran for the nearest manhole. The clone morphed into Jim and began to give chase. Odd grappled with the clone's red sweater, trying to slow him down. The monster back handed Odd with otherworldly force, and he skipped across the dirt clearing, the back of his skull cracking against the stone stairs of the Hermitage. "Odd!" Jade howled. She round housed the polymorph across the face, and felt the vibrations chase up her leg; her entire right leg felt numb. The clone, however, seemed hardly bothered by the force she slammed into it. It stumbled slightly, as if Jade had lovingly pushed it. Out of the corner of her periphery, she saw the others disappear into the forest's shade.

"Odd, get up," Jade moaned, hobbling to her elder brother and yanking him to his feet. Jim turned back to them from scouring the tree line with his X.A.N.A eyes. Jade felt ill with fear; they'd managed to let the others escape, but now she and Odd were in the clone's crosshairs. "Odd, come on, we have to run!"

On Lyoko, Yumi threw both of her fans but only managed to slay one Hornet out of the horde as Aelita ran onward, Ulrich and Yumi guarding her rear. Ulrich side stepped to the side and used his thin blade to block the volley of lasers shot his way. "Watch out, X.A.N.A's sending reinforcements!" A Tarantula's outline flickered into existence behind Yumi and solidified, the monster dropping from the sky with a battle cry.

Yumi threw fan after fan, but each of her projectiles were shot down but the Tarantula's twin barrels. To her right, Ulrich leapt again and again into the air, but couldn't get enough air to slice through the Eye of the several Hornets. Behind them, Aelita wheezed for breath as she raced towards the activated tower.

"Jade, come on!" Odd hollered, yanking his sister through the Hermitage. Behind them, the clone roared angrily, trying to gain ground. The twins weaved a random trail through the house, a tiring game of cat and mouse, slamming the doors behind them as they passed through and trying their best to barricade them without missing a step. However, each barrier hardly slowed the creature down as it pounded after them.

Jade was falling behind; her numb leg didn't function properly, and she couldn't keep up. The twins sprinted down the hall, and Jade's leg gave out beneath her. She crumpled to the floor, biting her tongue to keep from screaming in pain. "Go on without me," she hissed. "I'm only slowing you down!"

"There's no way I'm going to-" nearby, a door exploded from its hinges as the muscular monster bursted from it.

"There's no time to argue," Jade growled. She limped into a closet and her brother helped lower her to the floor. Suddenly, Jade yanked Odd in with her and closed the door quickly but silently. Odd began to protest, but his younger sibling clamped her hand over his mouth.

Just outside the door, the specter's footsteps creaked on the ancient wooden floors. He paced the room, hunting, searching. The Della Robbia's felt their blood rush in their ears, and Odd wondered how the monster couldn't hear the deafening scream of his pounding heart. Unexpectedly, the footsteps sounded out of the room, and then further and further away…. Jade's ears perked up when the front door slammed open and shut.

Jade tripped from the closet, limping to the window. "He's leaving us!" Jade wailed. "He's heading to the factory! Odd, you have to go stop him!"

"I told you, I won't leave you!" Odd cried back, his soul shredding itself inside him.

"You're the only one who can, I can't even run anymore!" Jade insisted, pushing her brother lightly towards the door. "Jeremy has no idea that the ghost is coming, you have to go protect him!"

"I won't abandon you," Odd boomed, turning on his sister rapidly and planting his feet.

"Go!" Jade shouted, pushing him again. "Go!" she shrieked again when he shook his head stubbornly. "GO!" For the first time in the twins life, one of them raised a hand to the other. The slap stung across Odd's face, like a bucket of ice cold water to return his logic while his face flamed. With one last apologetic glance at his sister, Odd rounded and sprang from the room. He leapt deftly over upturned furniture and jumped over the rotten, weak spots in the floor, skirting the decay of abandonment until he too slammed out the front door and gave chase to his quarry which was already out of sight, his yellow sneakers pounding the dirt below.

Jade slumped to the ground, weak and exhausted, her palm stinging with the strike. Without furniture scraping along the floor, door slamming open, and the constant fear of being caught, time in the Hermitage came to a stop for her. She felt empty and dazed, wondering how the world could get so silent so quickly.

The Hornets finally got the best of Yumi, and she was devirtualized, despite Ulrich's valiant efforts to try and save her. He turned and fled from the two remaining Hornets and the Tarantula, following the trail of kicked up dust Aelita left behind. Lasers chased him, but he zig zagged artfully. Aelita was so far away, he could hardly see her, but she was almost there, almost to the tower, almost….

A translucent jellyfish oozed from behind the tower. "No!" Ulrich gasped. He began to Supersprint, trying desperately to reach his charge, but already, the Scyphozoa's tentacles were hoisting the hyperventilating girl into the air.

On Earth, Jeremy was thrown across the room by the clone. Odd and Yumi engaged the monster, but it was so incredibly strong, and Jeremy was a sitting duck, trying to manage the mission on Lyoko. "Ulrich, hurry! We're getting creamed out here!" Jeremy shouted from his master chair. The ghost grabbed his ankle and tried to drag him from his seat, but Yumi was able to pound the grip away. "Free Aelita!" Jeremy commanded, scrambling back into his seat.

Ulrich was still far away, and even Supersprinting, it would take too much time. On a whim, he threw his saber over his head, and it soared across the air, crossing the distance much faster than he himself was. It sliced the tentacles of the Scyphozoa dangerously close to Aelita's face. Shrieking in pain, it dropped the limped girl, slinking away sadly.

Ulrich helped Aelita to her feet and began searching for the monster as soon as he had his kitana's hilt back in his hand, but it was nowhere to be found. It had fled and devirutalized itself again, and Ulrich had missed a chance to destroy it.

Aelita sprinted into the tower, soared to the second platform, and placed her hand on the interface gently, wiping away X.A.N.A's corrupt virus and cleansing the system. On Earth, the Jim clone wavered before Yumi and Odd, then frizzled out of existence. "Tower: Deactivated," Aelita sighed.

The Warriors gathered and went back to the Hermitage to help Jade to her feet. "About time," she grimaced, trying to hide how glad she was to see all her friends safe. Ulrich and Odd carried Jade back to campus and went straight to the infirmary. They told Yolanda that she had been climbing a tree and had fallen, and it turned out she had a slight sprain. Although it hurt like bloody hell, it would heal fairly quickly. She would have to use crutches for two weeks, and take it easy on the weak ankle for a few weeks after that.

With her new crutches, Jade hobbled out into the late afternoon sunshine, feeling exhausted. It had been quite the roller coaster, both emotionally and physically. The group began to chat regularly, as if nothing had happened, and it made Ulrich smile. At the end of the day, no matter how many times they saved the world, they were still just a group of goofy kids, and nothing changed that.

"Jeremy, could you come here a moment?" Aelita grinned charmingly. "I wanna' check something."

"Sure," Jeremy nodded, following her around the corner of the vending machine building's weather shelter. Yumi winked at her friends and pointed after the two programmers, and everyone tip toed to peek after them, Jade hobbling along. "So, what was it you wanted to see?" Jeremy asked, thinking that he and Aelita were alone. With a confident smirk, the shy girl grabbed Jeremy's blue sweater and yanked his lips to hers with surprising command. Their lips pressed together, Aelita holding Jeremy in place and savoring the feeling; it was exhilarating.

When Aelita broke the kiss, Jeremy was frozen with glee and surprise. He blinked rapidly, the kiss acting with his brain as pulling the power plug on a computer does. "That's just what I thought," Aelita giggled, blushing a little and returning to her usual timid demeanor. She sneaked by Jeremy, who was still so happy he couldn't function.

"You go, girl!" Odd cheered as Ulrich clapped. Yumi held up her hand, and Aelita slammed her friend a confident high five before shoving her hands into her pockets self-assuredly, sauntering away, leaving Jeremy to cope on his own.

Finally, Jeremy regained the control of his muscles, and ran his fingers over and over through his shaggy blonde hair, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open, and his fingers quaking. Getting a kiss from the girl of his dreams was… exhilarating. "Wow," he breathed.


	13. Double Take

**Guys, surprise, surprise, another episode focused on Jeremy… I always crush on the intelligent, scrawny ones! If you've looked through any of my other stories, most of them are centered around the intellectual of the group. I'm addicted; I'm sorry…sorta**

Odd grumbled in irritation; not a single one of his friends had laughed at his joke. Didn't they know comedic gold when they heard it? The group grumbled and argued about whether or not Odd's sense of humor was worthwhile, and Jeremy's shoulders grew more and more visibly tense with each passing second.

"Do you mind making a little less noise?" he finally snapped, turning slightly in his computer chair to glare at the other five with one eye in turn before turning back to his monitor screen. The Warriors lounged lazily in Belpois' bedroom, taking up space on his bed, leaning against his desk, or sprawled across the floor. "Some of us," meaning only himself, "are trying to work. I've already spent a lot of sleepless nights recreating the rest of Lyoko, and improving the digital equipment for all of you, and now I have to figure out what to do about William!" Jeremy's svelte fingers glided across the keys, punching in codes at inconceivable speeds. "He's still stuck on Lyoko, under the control of X.A.N.A, and if we don't do something soon, people are going to start noticing his absence."

Yumi shuddered; they all felt betrayed by William, her most of all, and yet, she didn't wish this, this mindless subservient existence stuck in timeless limbo, on anyone. Jeremy groaned and shoved his headset on and connecting it to his desktop's tower. He opened a manipulation program he himself had coded, and dialed the number to the academy's front desk. A few moments passed, before Jeremy said, "Hlello, can I speak with principal Delmas?... Thank you." The call was also being played aloud on Jeremy's monitor speakers; on the other end of Jeremy's line, Jeremy's voice was very deep, confident, and grown-up sounding.

"Yes, hello, Mr. Delmas?" Jeremy said smugly into the mouth piece when the line connected. "This is James Dunbar, William's father." Aelita's eyes widened with understanding as Ulrich struggled to smother a sicker into his elbow. "I'm calling to say that my son will be unable to attend school this week. He's got a very severe flu, a high fever, and will need to remain in bed and resting for a few days."

"Well, I'm terribly sorry to hear that!" Sissy's father exclaimed from the other end. "Well, please tell your son we all wish him a speedy recovery. Goodbye, and thanks for calling." The line disconnected, and Jeremy sighed heavily with relief as he removed the headset and unplugged the jack from the tower, closing the manipulation program on his screen.

"Nice going, Jeremy," Jade grinned. "You bought us another week."

"I don't know what'd we do without my voice synthesizer," Jeremy nodded in agreement.

"Well!" Odd clapped, changing the course of the conversation abruptly, "now that we've handled Delmas, we can get to more important stuff."

"Yeah? Like what?" Aelita smiled, having a hunch.

"Like meatballs and spaghetti!" Odd winked, leaping to his feet in excitement. Aelita laughed cheerily as Yumi shook her head, a grin playing on her mouth.

"Odd, I know you're a walking stomach," Jeremy smirked, "but I don't have time to go to lunch. I have to go to the factory to try a test run on the codes for your new equipment."

"We'll catch you later, Einstein," Jade said quickly, jumping to her feet from her spot on the floor and snatching her brother's wrist to haul him off the bed, cutting off the idiotic joke that was trying to spill from his mouth. "We'll save you some food!" The group split up, Jeremy heading to the factory, and the rest of the group heading to the cafeteria. They ate in a jolly clatter of laughter and clinking silverware when Ulrich grimaced.

"Uh oh, here comes Delmas and the 'Incredible Hulk'," he groaned. The principal's eyes scanned the lunch room until his gaze met Yumi's. His target in sight, Sissy's father began striding purposefully towards the group, Jim marching right on his heels.

"Good afternoon, Yumi," Mr. Delmas smiled, polite enough. "Have you seen or heard from William Dunbar recently by any chance? Jim mentioned you are close friends."

"Somebody told me he was sick in bed with a high fever," Yumi frowned, looking for all the world honest. Jim, who stood just behind Delmas' shoulder, narrowed his eyes at the young woman.

"Let me handle this, John Pierre," Jim cut in, leaning over his boss's shoulder. "Listen, Yumi," he began, his voice carrying only the slightest hint of unspoken threats of detention, "just be honest with us. If you want to know, I think William is somewhere, and something tells me that somehow you know exactly where that somewhere is, and sometimes it's better to be honest with someone. If we don't see or hear from William by tonight, principal Delmas will have to call the cops." Ulrich shared a look with Aelita, who shrugged her shoulders. None of what her gym teacher had said made sense to her either.

The principal gave Jim a quizzical look, just as confused by his tirade as the students, before thanking them for their time and leaving them to their lunch. The group scarfed down the remaining food and went outside, finding a secluded patch of shade beneath a large oak tree to relax beneath as they called Jeremy, updating him on Jim's growing suspicion.

"No way," Jeremy moaned into the receiver on speaker. "That means I'm going to have to slog away all afternoon trying to figure out a program to get William out of X.A.N.A's clutches, and who knows if it will even work?"

"Nope, that's impossible," Ulrich countered. "We've got gym this afternoon; you can't keep cutting physical ed all the time!"

"One more time, and you're gonna' be in a lot of trouble," Aelita agreed, shaking her head. She herself didn't enjoy exercise, but unlike Jeremy, she didn't avoid it like the plague.

"All right, all right, I'll get back to you," Jeremy snapped irritably.

"What're you gonna' do?" Yumi asked cautiously, not liking the vague answer.

"Improvise, as usual," came Jeremy's sing song voice. The phone beeped then, letting the group know that Belpois had disconnected. With a shrug, Yumi began walking back into the campus proper, leading the group. Odd made a beeline for the vending machine, hungry again, as usual. He shoved a handful of quarters into the machine and pressed the button for hot chocolate coolly. A peculiar grinding sound wailed from inside the machine, but no cup fell, and no liquid poured. Odd pressed the button again and again sporadically. Jade shoved her brother aside and slammed her combat boot fitted foot into the metal in a savage kick. With a clicking noise, a cup fell into place, and fresh cocoa began to pour.

"Gee, thanks-" Odd's words were cut off as his younger sister snatched up his cup and began chugging it with a smug gleam in her eyes. "Oh, you big bully!" Odd snapped in irritation. Jade laughed and licked her upper lip, tossing her head of green and purple tipped bangs.

"Not my fault you're so dumb you can't even work a vending machine right," she teased, tossing the cup into the nearby trashcan easily.

"Well, you're so dumb-"

"Cool it, Della Robbia's, look who's coming," Yumi interrupted the sibling rivalry. "He sure got ready fast." Odd pulled out his phone briefly and checked the time; how had Einstein road up the slower than snail elevator, dashed across the bridge, rode through the sewers, sprinted across campus and up to his room and changed and ran back down again in less than ten minutes?

Jeremy chugged a soda from a brown can as he approached. While still several paces away, he tossed the empty can behind his back, kicked it with the heel of his foot, and sent it sailing up and over Urlich's head and neatly into the trash can, all without breaking stride. Jade blinked. She could think of times where Jeremy struggled just to walk straight and not trip, where had this coordination come from?

"Ten points!" Jeremy whooped, both loudly and obnoxiously. Odd felt uncomfortable; Jeremy was never one to call attention to himself. "Hey everybody," Jeremy called as he came to a stop before Yumi, a strange expression on his face. His words were long and drawn out, pompous and prideful.

"You finished all you had to do?" Aelita asked, trying to pull his attention from her dark Japanese friend back to herself. She didn't like the look Jeremy was giving Yumi. Jeremy gave Aelita a blatant once over, his eyes objectifying her and appraising her as one might look at a floor lamp at a garage sale. She shrank under his gaze.

Jeremy snorted, unimpressed, before returning his sultry gaze back to Yumi. "Piece a cake, sweetie pie, what'd you thank'? Hands down, you lookin' at the man!" he drawled, no longer even looking at Aelita. Aelita stiffened in hardly controlled and wildly confused anger.

"How's it going, kid?" Jeremy winked at Yumi, his voice softer and intimate, his words for her alone. "You must've got _allllll_ dolled up for me today. You wouldn't believe the vibes I'm feeling right now." He gave Yumi the same lecherous look up and down her body, making her want to shove her best friend's head into the cement. She was _not_ a kid, for crying out loud, she was older than him, and she was _not_ giving off or feeling 'vibes'.

Yumi took a huge step away from Jeremy; of all the men on the earth, she believed the last one to treat her as a conquest was Jeremy. This sudden flash of sexism made her think about knocking sense into him. "Hey, go back to being Jeremy, alright?" She growled, her unspoken threat loud and clear.

"It's just that," Jeremy continued, ignoring the hint and sauntering closer again to Yumi, "whenever I see you, I don't feel quite myself." He lead his face closer to hers, and she had to resist the urge to punch his perfectly straight nose. "Ya' know what I mean?" Around the Lyoko Warriors, a look was passed about at lightening speed; from Yumi to Aelita, from Aelita to Jade, Jade to Yumi, and all about until everyone had met everyone's gaze, excluding Jeremy.

Then, Jade and Odd shared a look. "X.A.N.A," they said simply. Their voices were off hand and careless, and gave no hint to the blitz attack that they initiated a second later, but still, the scrawny programmer was ready for them. The twins dove for him, and with inhuman speed, the specter snatched both the collar of Jade's shirt in one hand, and Odd's in the other. With a shout of surprise, Jade went soaring as Jeremy tossed her like a rag doll, her head slamming into the cinder block wall of the vending machine enclave. Odd was thrown and he slammed into Aelita, who screamed as she fell beneath his weight.

The ringing in Jade's head, won't stop, won't stop. She reaches up to check for blood and her hand comes back dry. Colors and shapes swirl before her. Far off, someone shouts, "Get Aelita to safety!" A brown blob, presumably Ulrich, and a black glob, assumedly Yumi, rush the falsified Jeremy. Abruptly, the ringing stops; what she had thought was her ears resonating her crash inside her head turned out to be the school bell; gym was about to start.

Yumi's phone chimed, and after answering it cautiously, keeping her eye on her target, she scowled in disbelief. She clicked a button, turning the speaker mode on just as Jade regained her footing. "Jeremy?" she cried incredulously. She looked about, her raised fists lowering slowly. Hearing Jeremy's name, Aelita and Odd were returning from their instinctual flight, Odd still keeping his charge on the far side of his body, and eyeing the cocky smile on the would-be Jeremy's face. Thankfully, the area was deserted; the bell had wrung before the brawl, and no one had seen the fight. The rest of the student body was heading to class.

Yumi pressed another button on her phone, and the video chat window appeared; the cocky smile on the Jeremy's face before them was identical to the cocky smile of the Jeremy that could been seen through the camera sitting at the master computer at the factory. "So, what do you think of me, guys?" Jeremy asked, oozing pride as he sat smugly in his cushy chair, his voice crackling through the speaker.

"Hold on," Yumi said, beckoning the others about her but glaring at the second Jeremy in front of them to keep his distance. "Mind explaining what's going on?"

"You mean you haven't figured out that I made a double of myself?" Jeremy crowed from his chair, looking quite pleased with himself. "A digital copy made by activating a tower on Lyoko! This way, I can work on the program for finding William, _and_ be in gym class at the same time."

"You might've warned us about it, Einstein," Jade hissed, rubbing the bump she felt rising on her scalp.

"Sorry guys, I was kinda' in a big hurry," Jeremy apologized over the phone, looking none too apologetic.

"Well, you ought to know that your double has got to be about the biggest flirt I've ever met," Yumi sighed, turning the camera from the Warriors gathered around her to the doppelganger, who was leaning suggestively against the wall, his glasses propped atop his head. Seeing himself the center to the attention and on camera, the double winked haughtily at the real Jeremy through the camera lense.

An awkward silence fell as Jeremy came to terms with the development; it was like looking in a mirror, and that reflection being the exact opposite of yourself in manner, an alter ego, if you will. Jeremy felt more than a little uncomfortable. "Very strange," the real Jeremy finally admitted. "Must be some emerging quality that appeared unexpectedly. Anyway, guys, I might have not hit a home run with it, but a double is still pretty good." A murmured agreement waved through the group, and after a brief farewell, Yumi hung up her phone and headed to her Chemistry class. Odd, Aelita, Jade, and Ulrich, who were a year younger, ran to the locker room, changing haphazardly to try and make it onto the field on time. Jeremy's clone followed at a much cooler pace.

The trio sprawled onto the track just as the late bell rang, barely making it. As Jim strode from his office's direct field access door, Ulrich and his pals joined their classmates breathlessly. Jeremy stood beside them, relaxed and carefree. Jim began roll call, and when Belpois was called, Aelita had to slap her face in embarrassment. Instead of politely raising its hand and saying 'present' as the real Jeremy would have, the clone pointed both pointed fingers into the air, an obnoxious grin on his face, and shouted, "Right here!"

"No, this has got to be a dream!" Jim smirked, raising his eyebrows. "Jeremy Belpois has finally decided to honor us with his presence, in the flesh, after holding the record for most absences for this class?" Jeremy smirked back at Jim prideful, his feathers unruffled for all of Jim's prodding. Jim narrowed his gaze, irritated not to get a rise. "Alright, well class, we now all get to watch Mr. Skin-n-Bones make up for lost time by throwing his lack of weight around. Belpois! To the line, and start with the shot put!" With a nervous sigh, Odd led his friends and the rest of the class to the bleachers, to watch the physical punishment Jim was going to put Jeremy through. Nearby, Ulrich heard a few young men snicker, betting that the skinny nerd wouldn't be able to throw the ball more than five feet. Ulrich cringed; this was going to be bad.

Jeremy look alike sauntered up to the challenge, his pores leaking over confidence and his expression telling Jim was a pathetic joke this trial was. Jeremy picked up the sixteen metal ball as if it were a pen, pulled his arm back expertly, and threw.

Yumi yawned into her palm; who cared about some antique microscope? Ms. Hertz lectured casually about the artifact, enjoying the breeze from the open window. Out of the corner of her eye, a shadow was rapidly approaching; thinking it was a blind bird, the professor jumped back. The shadow was no bird. The Jeremy clone's shot put soared in and shattered the ancient piece of technology, destroying a piece of history. Hertz fumed while Yumi blinked in confusion with her classmates. Hertz leaned out her window, shouting, "JIM! You're worse than the barbarians who burned down the Alexandria library!" before pulling back from the frame and glaring at her students until their giggles subsided.

Jim turned to 'Jeremy', speechless. Hertz's class was on the fourth floor of the science building, at the other end of the field, more than fifty yards away. Jim thought that Jeremy's throw was most likely a new world record.

"Okay, okay, champ," Jim growled, hating that his punishment was being used as a showcase, "let's see how well you throw a javelin!" He handed the lengthy spear to his thin armed, weakling student, thinking this was where the punishment and embarrassment would kick in. 'Jeremy' sneered at Jim egotistically. He swooped the javelin from Jim's meaty hand and twirled it end over end at a blinding speed, yawning to make a point of the effortlessness of the challenge. The wind from the speed of the javelin turning end over end tore at Jeremy's hair and clothes, as well as Jim's, before expertly gripping the shaft in the dead center, causing the wooden rod to twang with inertia. Around, whispers of awe and admiration rose.

Ulrich's phone rang, and Stern answered in stealthily, Odd and Aelita sitting on the bench before him casually, forming a wall of body that Ulrich ducked behind as he pulled his phone out. "Jeremy?" Ulrich whispered into the mouthpiece. A few more moments passes as Jeremy spoke on the other end of the line, before Ulrich breathed, "Oh, no."

"What's Einstein saying?" Odd hissed, trying to appear casual. The Jeremy duplicate froze in his stance, before turning towards the Lyoko Warriors, the needle point of the javelin carrying a wordless threat as Jeremy sighted down at the group. Jade tensed from beside Ulrich; she could see even from this distance the insane X.A.N.A logo within the swirling depths of the duo's eyes.

"Basically, X.A.N.A and Jeremy are fighting for control over the clone," Ulrich growled.

"Bingo! I got it! I regained control," Jeremy shouted so loud across the wavelength that the entire group could hear even though the phone was firmly pressed to Stern's ear. Aelita saw the X.A.N.A logo in the doppelganger's eye waver then disappear, before the clone straightened up and threw the javelin far, up and over the Science building, to disappear somewhere beyond sight. About them, classmates applauded Jeremy's sudden athletic prowess as Aelita whispered, "To the factory," to her chums.

"Alright, alright," Jim shouted, irritated with Belpois' apparent arrogance. "Della Robbias!" Jade and Odd stiffened, dreading what was to come. "Up to the line with Belpois; let's see how you run the 400 meter." With a sigh of irritation, Jade rose from her seat, her brother not far behind her. They toed the white line beside the digital copy and knelt, already blushing at the humiliation that was to come. "On your marks," Jim called, "Ready, set…BANG!" Odd's legs pumped furiously to no avail. Neither he nor his athletic sister were anywhere near competition. Jeremy's creation was a superhuman blur of inhuman speed, rounding the first corner of the track before either of the twins had taken five steps.

"We've… got to get… to the… factory," Odd puffed as they ran, hopelessly behind. Jade nodded too exhausted to response. As the twins dashed up to the finish, seemingly years after the duplicate, Jade suddenly sprawled onto her chest, crying out in pain and anguish. "Jade?" Odd cried, skidding to a stop and kneeling in panic beside his sister.

"I think I sprained my ankle," she gasped, clutching her right foot desperately. At the corner of her eyes, tears were building. Jim, along with the rest of the class, trotted over to the downed student. Jim immediately felt nervous; Jade was one of his quietest students. She muffled a scream of pain against Odd's knee. If she was crying out this much, he worried it was much worse than a sprain.

"Stern, Belpois, Lyoko," Jim barked, summoning Jade's closest friends. "Carry Della Robbia to the infirmary! Now, now class…" Jim turned back to the rest of the students and tried to calm them as concerned and panicked whispers rose from the crowd. Ulrich and Jeremy's double lifted Jade from beneath her arms, while Aelita and Odd lifted her legs. Odd muttered mindless comforts to Jade, his voice choked with tears, as Jade groaned in pain.

Once they were around the corner and out of sight from everyone, Jade kicked easily from her friends grips, her fake tears quickly wiped away with a self-satisfied grin. "Nice acting, Della Robbia," Odd grinned, slapping his sister on the back.

"Runs in the family," she teased back, punching Odd back. "Let's split up; Ulrich and Aelita, head to the factory."

"What about us?" the Jeremy double asked, confused at how such a grave injury was so easily overcome.

"Ya' know, you and I better still take Jade in to the nurse, Jeremy," Odd said, giving a pointed look to Ulrich and Aelita, who nodded and ran off to the woods. "She still might be hurt." Odd, Jade, and the duplicate walked on, the twins keeping view of the fake human in their peripherals warily, watching for any sign of Jeremy's tower on Lyoko losing the battle to X.A.N.A again.

"Isn't this the dormitory?" the copy asked in confusion.

"Yeah, but the nurses office is based in here," Odd lied. "Just in case one of us needs help during the night." Odd opened a spare janitor closet, leaving the light out, and thus obscuring what was within. "After you," Odd smiled, the mask of perfect innocence.

"Very strange," the Belpois copy muttered, but walked into the dark all the same. Jade immediately shoved a hefty metal filing cabinet before the door, effectively blocking it.

"That was way too easy," Odd laughed, relaxing against the wall. Jade bit her lip in worry; things were never that easy.

On Lyoko, Yumi shouted in surprise as one of the Tarantulas managed to land a hit on the Overwing's hull. It devirtualized beneath them, throwing both of the young woman down a hole straight towards the Digital Sea. Aelita suddenly found she was floating, and spared a quick look just behind herself. Translucent pink wings connected to her shoulder blades and held her aloft. "Something I created in my spare time," Jeremy sang from above.

"Great job, Jeremy!" Aelita laughed as she weaved in and out of enemy fire, diving to catch Yumi. She scooped Yumi beneath the armpits, well above the Sea's surface, and landed gently with her cargo on a cliff. Yumi stared at her in surprise.

"Aelita, you're an angel," she finally grinned. Above, Ulrich spared off with a dark William, his new dual swords hardly strong enough to block the crushing blows that William's claymore rained down on him.

"Guys, hurry!" Jeremy panicked from Earth. "X.A.N.A's taken over my tower, and now my evil twin is here in the factory!"

"Would you like to trade spots?" Ulrich snapped, back flipping just clear of a heavy overhead swing that would've crushed his digital skull. Ignoring Ulrich's flippant remark, Jeremy did the only thing he could think to do; he locked the elevator door to his computer room, and waited tensely. Above, Jeremy could hear the crushing sound as the evil duplicate punched the elevator call key, probably crushing it. Far behind, the twins were skateboarding through the sewers, riding a snail's pace in comparison to the copy's otherworldly speed. A moment later, a shrill grinding noise pierced the air as Jeremy trembled in his chair; the copy was trying to force itself in. Jeremy hardly registered the rapid beeping that chirped from his monitor; Ulrich was devirtualized in battle.

A Tarnatula dive bombed Aelita as she flew beneath, trying to evade the flurry of lasers. Although she was able to swerve from beneath the plummeting body, the downdraft dragged at her, causing her to fall like a stone from the sky. Her wings strained against her shoulder blades, trying to right themselves. Sinew stretched and ached, but finally the glowing pink feathers caught the wind properly and she began to regain altitude.

On earth, Jade and Odd glanced nervously at the crushed elevator key, a fist sized dent in the iron. "He leaves an impression wherever he goes," Odd sighs as they turn to take the rickety ladder that led directly down into the master computer room.

"Har dee har har," Jade snapped, clamoring down the ladder. Below, she heard the high squeal and keening of metal being ripped apart. The clone, under X.A.N.A's control, was forcing itself in. On Lyoko, Aelita sent a duo of Energy Fields at William and the last Tarantula. The monster exploded, but William's massive blade blocked the attack as the pink girl whizzed by.

Jade glanced down; the clone was stalking towards Jeremy with a feral grin, a wolf approaching a dropped fawn. She was still ten feet above, but she leapt for all her worth and came crashing down on top of the clone. It screamed with surprise and Jade tried to pin it down. Electricity arched into her body, and Jade thought she was on fire. Every muscle burned and ached, and her grip loosened as she crumpled onto her side.

Odd rushed across the room, and soared horizontal, trying to tackle the monster's waist. The doppelganger clenched the neckline of Odd's purple shirt and threw him to the floor, the boy's body skipping across the floor as a stone. "Tower: Deactivated," Aelita's voice sighed with relief in Jeremy's ear through his earpiece. Just as the specter was turning to Belpois, it exploded with the tinkling of bells as flecks of light spread across the room, and a thin wisp of pitch black smoke sneaked up through the seams of the ceiling.

"Return to the Past, now!" Jeremy shouted, slamming the 'enter' key on his keyboard. His mind was completely erased as his eyes went sightless with stainless white, pure and fresh.

His alarm clock blared; 7 AM. At the back of his mind, at the edge of true knowledge, Jeremy felt a terrible sense of déjà vu, and he knew what it meant. His onetime trip to Lyoko hadn't granted Jeremy complete recollection of what happened prior to a Return to the Past, but it gave him a sixth sense of sorts, and it always left him jumbled as he tried to grasp at straws just out of reach. He quickly dressed and headed to the cafeteria. Everyone, except for Yumi who lived off campus, sat solemnly before untouched trays of food. "So what happened?" he asked. Everyone filled him in with hushed whispers.

"There's something else," Aelita croaked, her lips tight and pale. "William fell into the Digital Sea while fighting Yumi." Jeremy froze, speechless with shock. He couldn't believe that his worst fear since discovering Lyoko, losing someone to the unchecked and disproportionately huge flow of information of the world wide web, had come true.

"Let's…meet at the factory during off hour," Jeremy coughed. Belpois combed the codes, scoured the sequences, but he couldn't locate William's DNA cipher. "The only option is to make a clone of William, to get the principal and his crony Jim off of our backs," Jeremy sighed.

"Isn't that more than a little risky?" Yumi groaned, the trauma of the most recent fabricated human still fresh in her mind.

"Yes, but it's the only way," Jeremy muttered, already keying in the necessary code to materialize the false William. "Alright, he'll materialize in William's dorm room, I've set his launch station there. Let's go see what he's like." The students returned to school and went about their classes, Yumi escorting 'William' to their shared classes.

"He looks…normal," Jade said cautiously as Yumi and William exited the Language building. Delmas approached the pair, and the rest of the group could overhear the ensuing conversation.

"William, my boy!" the principal cheered. "I'm glad to see you up and about, and that your fever has broken."

"Did I… break anything else?" The false William asked sincerely. Delmas stiffened and glanced at Yumi beside him. Yumi smiled apologetically and mouthed the words, 'still not well.'

"You…just keep taking your medicine," Delmas encouraged before walking away, a befuddled expression still on his face.

"Maybe the emerging qualities in clones are the features the original person most represses. I mean, Jeremy's clone was a huge flirt, but the real Jeremy isn't anything like that," Jade wondered, "while William is displaying a lack of any intelligence."

"No," Ulrich snorted with distaste, "both the false William and the real one are brainless." Jade snickered into her palm as Odd nodded in agreement.


	14. I'd Rather Not Talk About It

Jeremy blew heartily into his whistle, one hand planted sternly on his hip as he eyed his approaching friends, the shrill screech of the whistle piercing the forest's gloom. Ulrich and Jade led the pack, with the other three following close behind. All five young adults had blotchy, oxygen deprived cheeks, their breaths raspy and ragged. "Come on!" Jeremy called to them. "Let's move it faster! _FASTER!"_

"I don't believe it, he's trying to kill us!" Aelita cried in despair, trying to push herself forward. Odd limped beside her, his eyelids droopy and weak. His feet barely left the ground with each stride, kicking up dirt as he slumped along at a reckless pace. His toe caught a tree branch, and he soared through the air, landing heftily at Jeremy's feet. He was so exhausted, he didn't even feel the pain of impact.

"You guys are ridiculous," Jeremy announced with a glance at his stopwatch. He surveyed his comrades in arms with severe disapproval. "You're way too slow! What a bunch of snails. Except for you, Odd. Even a snail runs faster than you." Odd barely lifted his chin from the ground, pouring all his leftover reserves of energy to heat the glare he aimed at Jeremy.

"Since when does the least athletic person in the world thinks he's a better judge of fitness than I am?" He spat, his chest heaving as he sat up.

"Getting a little carried away, aren't you, Einstein?" Jade growled, massaging her seizing calves with a scowl, seconding her brother's foul mood.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Jeremy cautioned, holding his hands up in surrender. "Don't blame me. The stop watch doesn't lie, you guys."

"Let's head back to campus," Yumi sighed, finally rising from her crouch on the ground. "I'd like to try and enjoy some of my weekend, that is, if Jeremy is finished training us for the Olympics." The group headed back to school grounds, receiving several questioning glances at their sweaty brows and filthy clothes. They congregated around the two water fountains by the gymnasium, each taking several long droughts before stepping aside for the next person to get their fill, before getting back in line for seconds and thirds.

"That was even worse than the last time," Jeremy finally grunted, crossing his arms in disappointment. "How do any of you plan to keep up with X.A.N.A if none of you get in better shape?"

"You're a regular comedian," Odd snorted. "All you ever do is time us, and anyone can do that."

Ignoring Odd's jab completely, Jeremy continue, saying, "One things for sure, if you don't get into better shape, you'll never get any stronger and X.A.N.A's gonna' beat all of us hands down. If you can think of a better trainer, be my guest."

"Maybe there's a better way of getting in shape," Yumi offered gently, trying to play the role of peace maker with an appealing smile.

"Oh, _I get it,_ " Jeremy snapped, growing defensive. "You're just badly trained! And since I'm your trainer, if you guys can't keep up, it's my fault!"

"Well, yeah," Ulrich and Odd said simultaneously, as Aelita and Jade tried to deny the statement.

"Okay, fine!" Jeremy clipped, throwing his hands in the air as Aelita covered her face in frustration; the boys certainly weren't helping to deescalate things. "I might not be the best trainer in the world, but you have to admit, you don't exactly listen to me."

"That's true, that's true," Jade snuck in, glaring at Ulrich and her brother to keep quiet while she tried her best to keep her tone soothing, so as to end the increasingly heated discussion. "Maybe we need to find someone else, like a specialist."

"And where do you expect to find one?" Jeremy inquired, his squared shoulders slumping now that he no longer felt under fire. The group pondered quietly. Aelita's eyes brightened and she began to laugh heartily. "What's so funny?" Jeremy wondered aloud.

"It's so obvious," she replied with a grin, standing up and gesturing for the others to follow. As she neared the gymnasium, it became clear to everyone what she had in mind.

"And just what do you all think you're doing?" Jim snapped when he opened to the knock on his office door. "Can't I get a little peace and quiet even on a Sunday?"

"Well, it's simple," Jeremy started, offering what he hoped was a persuasive smile. "We, uh, heard that you were once a Special Forces trainer." At that, Jim's chest swelled with pride.

"That's right!" Jim crowed. "Special Forces S.D.F, Secretive Divisions Force. Those were the good old days….However, that being said, I'd rather not talk about it."

"Would you be willing to train students, like us?" Jeremy begged. When Jim's eyebrows disappeared beneath his hairline, Jeremy added on quickly, "ya' know, like for a kinda' commander camp, like your Special Intervention…thing," he finished weakly.

"Deal," Jim grinned after a moment. "Meet me at the Red Cross and Forest Trail crossroads in the forest at fifteen hundred hours sharp. And dress for sports."

"You mean like, today?" Yumi stuttered. "Already?"

"It touches me that students recognize me for my experience and skill," Jim admitted with a shy grin. "Especially you, Belpois."

"No, you don't understand," Jeremy spluttered, eyes wide in worry. "I was talking about training the others, not me."

"The training is for _everybody_ ," Jim stressed, turning back into his office. "All of you better be on time, and I mean _all of you!_ " With that, Jim slammed his office door shut.

"HA! This will do wonders for you, Jeremy," Odd chuckled as he put a supportive hand on Jeremy's slumped shoulder. "Now, you'll be able to put away your stop watch for a change!" Yumi cackled uncontrollably at the irony.

"This is stupid," Jeremy hissed as he yanked himself away from Yumi's teasing and led the way back outside. "I can't do a commando camp, I've got a million other things to do!"

"I think you're just afraid of sweating a little," Yumi continued, sticking her tongue out at her weak friend.

"What if X.A.N.A attacks while we are training?" Jeremy whines, grasping for straws.

"Just bring your computer," Jade offered, rolling her eyes. Jeremy slumped ever further, if that was possible.

"Don't worry, Jeremy," Aelita cooed, feeling both sorry for him, and a slight sense of justice. "Jim's commando camp can't possibly do us any harm, right?"

"I HAVE NEVER SEEN A WEAKER PACK OF LEGLESS SLUGS IN MY LIFE," Jim hollered a few hours later. The group stood in the forest, huffing and puffing; they had ran to try and meet Jim in time, but they had been a few minutes late. "Fifteen hundred sharp does not mean fifteen hundred oh two, or even fifteen hundred oh three! Let's go! To make up for the lost time, you're all gonna' have to run faster to reach our goal in time, before we start in with some basic training. Like push-ups!" The group followed, surprised at how quickly the large man took off.

"I wonder if recruiting Jim was a mistake," Aelita wondered aloud, just loud enough for Jade and Jeremy to hear.

"It was a mistake," Jade grumbled quietly.

"Not just a mistake, a colossal mistake," Jeremy snapped, his laptop bouncing irritatingly against his back as he jogged along. They reached a summit on a hill, and Jim ordered them all to the ground. Fifteen push-ups later, Jeremy couldn't continue. He fell flat onto the ground, his arms quivering.

"GET UP!" Jim commanded. "Up, up up! High knees, high knees!" Ulrich and Jade jumped up first, their cheeks flushed red as the rest of their team slowly followed them. Jeremy, however, stayed on him knees, unable to convince his body to rise anymore.

"Jeremy, are you okay?" Aelita huffed.

"Not really, I feel awful," Jeremy wheezed, panting on the filthy ground.

"What do you think you're doing, Belpois?" Jim demanded. "Get up, this is only the beginning!"

"Jim, don't you think you're overdoing it?" Yumi groaned, finally coming to a blissful stand still. "We want training, not torture."

"You're wrong, young lady," Jim snapped. "You're all participating in my boot camp, and that means two things; you don't sweat, and you don't complain! That is, unless you want ten extra pushups. From this moment on, we live and die together as a group, got it?"

"Okay, okay," Odd sighed, irritable from the exertion. "Don't get carried away." Jim raised his eyebrow at Odd in surprise before his eyes narrowed in challenge.

"Well, since Della Robbia still has the energy to mouth off, I suppose I'm not pushing you all hard enough. Let's go, three mile run!" Jim took off, and the group grumbled angrily.

"Nice going, Odd," Ulrich snapped. They charged off up the incline, their thighs wailing for relief. Aelita was desperate for air, but to slow down was to be left behind. They climbed cargo nets, shimmied along ledges, crawled beneath barbed wire, tiptoed along fence tops. Jim finally called for a break, saying he was feeling 'a tad tired.' The group sprawled about the grass gratefully, wanting to use every moment of the break to relax.

When it looked as if Jim was about to end the break five minutes later, Yumi scrambled for a reason to stall the ending of the respite. "Hey, you know what, Jim?" she began, still panting, "We'd love to hear about your life before being a teacher. I know you don't usually want to talk about it, but since it's just between us members of the same commando group, maybe you could shed a little more light on your past."

"When you put it that way….All right, listen up," Jim began. "It all began when I completed my training to be a physical education teacher. I was also a licensed scuba diver, and that's why the Marines recruited me for their Special Forces unit." Jade bit her tongue, trying to hold a laugh of disbelief in. "NASA heard of me, and now that I was a Special Forces diver, they had me test out their space suits under water." Odd began to fade out of the story, exhaustion taking over, and when he tuned back into the monologue, he was thoroughly lost. "After I received a medal of honor from the president, I was then appointed to the Secret Service. And believe me, Rosita Banana was good at playing more than the accordion; she was also a stellar pilot."

Aelita blinked in blatant confusion; she wasn't sure how one thing could possibly have lead into the other, and made coherent sense. "By the time I arrived with my cameras, as I was a photographer for National Geographic at the time, her plane nearly bowled me over!" Jim finished with a laugh.

A faint beeping could be heard far off; Jeremy yawned in exhaustion, wondering how long the annoying noise was going to continue. Wait…beeping? Jeremy sat up sharply, suddenly very aware. They were in the middle of nowhere, in a forest. The only piece of technology even near them was- his laptop! "Alright, everyone up, break time is over! A quick, brisk jog to shake off the rest!" Everyone groaned as they rose, following their teacher with grumpy expressions. Jeremy snuck behind a tree and checked his laptop; most certainly, a tower had been activated. Jeremy shoved the computer back into his pack and turned to warn the others…only to find that they were already out of sight. He had to catch up; he had to warn them of the danger.

He pumped his legs as fast as he could, trying to make up the lost ground. He ran faster and faster, but with a cry of surprise, came to a skidding halt. Before him, a great, hairy beast with tusks turned to him angrily. It eyed him with strangely shaped pupils. They were in the shape of X.A.N.A's sigil. "Jeremy, watch it!" Jade boomed, on the far side of the boar, with the rest of his training group.

The pig rushed Jeremy, its razor sharp tusks flashing maliciously as it charged. Jeremy's brain screamed for him to run, to hop for a low hanging tree branch, to try anything to get him to safety, but all he could do was stare as the creature bore down on him.

Jim leapt with a grunt onto the boar's back, trying to ground the beast. It thrashed wildly and desperately, trying to free itself. Jim suddenly went limp; X.A.N.A's pet had landed a strong kick with its hooved feet against Jim's skull. "I'll create a diversion," Ulrich said in a rush as he picked up a stone. In front of him, the boar was rounding and recharging Jim's unconscious body. "Head for the factory!" With a mighty heave, Ulrich slew the rock straight into the pig's snout, it's most sensitive area. It wheeled, squealing loud enough to make Aelita cover her ears. It quickly spun and charged Ulrich, its possessed eyes filled with rage. Ulrich took off, crashing through the brush and disappearing with the mammal hot on his heels.

"X.A.N.A sent this thing after us," Jeremy clipped, his voice tight with worry. "There's no time to lose, get to the computer lab."

"What about you?" Jade asked, kneeling beside Jeremy. Jeremy pressed his fingers to Jim's neck. He must've felt a pulse, because he turned back to his friend's, his eye slightly less apprehensive.

"Aelita can manage the virtualization process," Jeremy replied. "I better stay here with Jim." The group nodded, and as they dashed away to find access to the sewers below, Aelita shouted 'good luck'. Jeremy shook Jim to what, in such a state of direness, could be considered consciousness, as he stuttered incoherent sentences while Jeremy helped him to his feet. Jeremy had only lugged the man a few feet before his phone began ringing.

"Jeremy, I'm alright, but the boar is headed back your way!" Ulrich warned, his voice static across the connection. Jeremy shut the phone and hurriedly placed Jim into a large overhang of a rock formation. From one side, they were completely invisible. From the other, they were in plain sight.

"We have to find a way to conceal our hiding place," Jeremy declared, looking at Jim for guidance. Jim blinked sluggishly up at his student, not comprehending what was being said. Seeing his teacher wouldn't be much help, Jeremy paced nervously as he spoke to himself, constantly glancing in the direction Ulrich and their new friend disappeared to. "I'll try to camouflage us with some branches."

Jeremy crawled carefully back into the shelter, trying not to disturb or shift any of the perfectly laid boughs that now hid them. Jim was slowly coming back to his senses, but Jeremy felt worried. One of Jim's knees was several shades of purple, and Jim winced at it's tenderness. "That doesn't look too good, you'll need an x-ray to see if it's broken," Jeremy told his teacher. "I'm gonna' have to immobilize it for now, or it's going to hurt even worse." Jim nodded in understanding, his tongue still feeling bloated and useless in his mouth.

Jeremy grabbed two relatively straight sticks off of the ground of their shelter, and tore off the last few inches of his t-shirt, carefully wrapping Jim's injury and splinting it with the fabric. "Pretty good splint there, Belpois," Jim grinned after Jeremy was done, finally completely regaining his mental faculties. "Haven't seen work like that in a long time! Never worked with the army before, have you?" Jim asked jokingly.

"No, it's just a question of common sense," Jeremy replied, the jest going right over his head. "An injured joint won't worsen if it doesn't move."

"Exactly," Jim nodded in approval. "You would've made a good soldier, Belpois. Well, if you had a little more muscle…"

"Maybe you don't know this, Jim," Jeremy grinned, swelling with pride over the compliment, "but the brain is kinda' like a muscle, and that's the one in particular that I've been exercising extensively." Jim nodded thoughtfully, thinking about what his student had said, when a snuffling could be heard outside their leaf thin shelter.

"Come on!" Yumi gasped desperately. "Every second counts!" She, as well as Aelita, Jade, and Odd had all spilled into the master computer room at the factory after what felt like an endless dead run over the uneven ground of the forest. Aelita hopped into the chair Jeremy usually preoccupied, trying to steady her shaky hands.

"Oh, no," Aelita gasped as several red triangles appeared on the screen before her. "X.A.N.A's sent monsters ahead of us into the Core!" As she said these words, a rapid beeping sounded the alarm as a dexterity bar for the first shield of the Core began to sink below 100%.

"Come on," Yumi commanded, taking up her Lyoko role of leader on Earth. "Twins, go and protect the core of Lyoko, I'm going to escort Aelita to the activated tower." The three ran for the elevator as Aelita started the countdown for the virtualization process, slipping in to join the others as the great metal doors of the elevator closed. Filling the four scanners, they listened as a emotionless male voice counted down from a minute, giving them time to mentally prepare themselves.

First, the tufts of Odd's straight up hair began to quiver as a slight breeze kicked up from beneath him. As the tailwind grew more and more persistent, Odd felt as if ants were scaling his legs, marching two by two under his purple trousers. He felt as though he was going to be ill as he squeezed his eyes shut as his stomach fell apart by molecules and was sucked up into the tube above him. He embraced the feeling of melting and held his breath as his lungs deconstructed. He'd been through all this many, many times before.

Jeremy and Jim sat stock still, cold sweat sneaking from under Jim's sweatband and tickling down his spine. Some crunching leaves underfoot told Jeremy that the boar was moving off, but the insistent sound of it's snuffling snout told Jeremy it wouldn't rest until it found them. "Bad news, Jim," Jeremy gulped, mentally berating himself for his stupidity. "Our camouflage is of no use! The boar's keen sense of smell will find us in no time."

They sat in heavy silence, straining to hear if the boar would return yet, and this time, if it would be downwind. Jim wiped in irritation at the trickle of sweat down his back, shivering against the ice cold fingers of sweat. His hand came away with a strange leaf that was stuck in his hair. The fumes wafting from the leaf were so strong, it began to burn the teacher's eyes.

Jim pushed at the tears welling, holding the leaf critically at a further distance from his face. Jeremy eyed it with mild interest that gradually intensified. "Let me see that," Jeremy requested, holding out a delicate palm. Jim handed it over gratefully, still trying to get his eyes to stop watering. Jeremy inhaled deeply the leaf's scent unflinchingly, his eyes unaffected. "Peppermint… I'll be right back!" Jeremy took off without a word, peeking out from the leafy shelter before taking a sprint out of sight.

On Lyoko, Aelita hopped onto Yumi's Hoverboard, urging that they hurry to the activated Tower, while Jade and Odd mounted up in Sector 5, heading for the Core. They slid through the clamping, jaw like door easily. Abandoning their vehicles in favor of grounded combat in the tight airspace, the twins began leaping up the spiral stairway that lined the tight, cylindrical Core room. Odd's claws flexed in and out with ease, his tight muscles bunching into a perfect tempo as he cleared three huge steps at a time. Jade peered ahead, her tail whipping to keep her balanced on all four paws. "There's three Mantas ahead," she said to her brother, hoping that the monsters wouldn't be able to hear her from above.

"Attack!" Cried a familiar voice from the back of one of the Manta's. William swung his gigantic claymore above his head barbarically, and the two Mantas who William wasn't mounted atop abandoned their siege on the Core's outer shield and dove towards the Della Robbia's.

"Ugh, this guy again?" Odd moaned, digging his claws into the stair to screech to a halt.

"What I wouldn't give to sink my claws into him," Jade practically purred, the adrenaline of the battle filling her. As the Mantas began shooting at the pair, they rolled and leapt free from harm.

"Uh…he-hello?" An uncertain voice wavered from above.

"Ulrich, my pal, it was about time you joined the party," Odd laughed as he ran along the wall to avoid a perilous volley of lasers, his claws digging deep.

"How do I virtualize myself?" Ulrich crackled from above. "I wanna' help."

"Beats me," Odd grunted, leaping off the wall and returning fire. The Manta he faced dodged his attack with ease.

"Ulrich, you're not any help to us," Jade growled dryly, taking a laser in the shoulder and trying not to yowl in pain. "See if you can hop the channel to where Aelita and Yumi are, they might need you."

"Okay…how do I do that?" Ulrich asked, staring at the countless buttons and switches before him. He felt incredibly out of place; he'd rather face a screaming army of Tarantulas than this calm, blue lit keyboard.

"How am I suppose to know!" Jade snapped angrily.

"Just, uh, try to hit buttons," Odd offered, trying hard not to let the side conversation distract him from his own battle.

"Alright, but I don't really see how th-" Ulrich's voice suddenly blipped out.

"Must've got it right," Odd said to himself.

In the Forest Sector, Aelita and Yumi scratched their heads I confusion. "I thought this was where you said the Tower was!" Yumi groaned.

"It must've been a coordination error," Aelita grumbled, twisting her head to and fro, trying to see even the slightest hint of a glowing red Tower outline. "We'll just have to look about for it."

"-is is going to work, there's hundreds of buttons!" Ulrich's voice suddenly fuzzed over static from above.

"Ulrich, is that you?" Yumi sighed, hopeful.

"Can you read the monitor?" Aelita demanded.

"Geez, Aelita," Ulrich groaned, "it isn't that hard! Just a bunch of-"

"Where do we have to go to find the Tower?" Aelita interrupted. Ulrich appraised the screen, trying to orientate himself from the master chair and not the Sector floor.

"Go sou- North! Go North!" he said into the mouthpiece. A few miles away, Jeremy entered his leafy sanctuary, clutching many peppermint leaves to his chest.

"Here, Jim, Rub these all over yourself! It should be enough to mask our scent from that boar." Jim made a face of disgust as he followed the younger man's instructions.

"What a nauseating scent…" he grumbled, trying hard to breathe very little.

"Better than being mauled," Jeremy replied. "Let's hope this scent lasts longer enough for Aelita and the others to deactivate the Tower."

"Belpois, are you some sort of demented?" Jim asked cautiously after a moment. Jeremy's face flushed with embarrassment as he realized his blunder, as Jim had no context of what it was he was speaking. As Jeremy opened his mouth to try a hasty cover up for his mistake, he heard snuffling outside. Jeremy sliced his hand through the air silently, trying to chop any words Jim might've been saying short. The sound eventually moved off, and Jim sighed, the tension distracting him from where the conversation had let off.

"Looks like your trick worked," he whispered carefully.

"Yeah, this time," Jeremy muttered worriedly. "But how much longer will the scent last?"

"WATCH IT!" Jade roared in the Core. She hurriedly rose to her paws and rolled away from another volley of lasers. "If I get devirtualized 'cause you can't aim, I'll personally execute you back home!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Odd replied, his friendly fire having knocked her onto her stomach. Finally, a Laser Arrow found it's mark, destroying the Manta he was facing off with. Satisfied with his success, Odd bounded down the few steps that separated him from his sister. "There, I got one! Does that redeem me in your eyes?" High above, the first shield of the Core shattered.

The Manta battling Jade dive bombed, trying to pin her down with a spray of lasers. Jade dodged each one as the monster disappeared below the step they stood on. "Not really," Jade hissed, trying not to let her brother distract her.

"Well, I suppose that there's only one way to earn your love again," Odd sighed dramatically.

"Oh yeah?" Jade smirked, peering over the step's edge to see the Manta flying back up to her. "And what's that?" To her left, a purple blur, that was her brother's body, leapt off into thin air.

"Sky diving!" He called back as he plummeted. He sank his claws into the Manta's back, careful not to shred the Eye, and rode it like a bucking bronco up, up, up the height of the slender room, approaching the final Manta, who was still attacking the last shield, and it's rider.

"Idiot," Jade chuckled, racing up the spiraling staircase, trying to catch up. As Odd's wild Manta drew even with William's, two things happened simultaneously. William's Manta shot a laser at Odd's, destroying his steed and sending the Warrior flailing into thin air, and Odd shot a Laser Arrow, slaying the Manta William rode. As Odd's body fell past Jade, she loaded his body full of her own Arrows, devirtualizing him before he was either crushed by the chomping Core door below or fell into the digital sea. Jade peered up hopefully and felt irritation and disappointment. Yes, she had been too hopeful to think that the explosion of the Manta would've destroyed William. With a grim smile, Jade raced up to meet her adversary.

A hairy snout stuck its way through the foliage Jeremy had gathered. "It's found us!" Jim whispered in panic. "What do we do-" Jeremy leapt from the shelter, screaming and hollering, waving his arms like a lunatic to draw the pig away, knowing that he was who X.A.N.A really wanted. Jim blinked in amazement as the scrawny boy martyred himself and took off, a wailing boar on his heels. "Boy, what that kid doesn't have in muscles he makes up in with guts!"

Jeremy ran as fast as he could, but his muscles were exhausted. After hours of training, followed by cramped crouching in a tiny cave, his muscles weren't stretched or ready for the sudden exertion. Jeremy hooked a sharp left, leaping over some low laying thorny bushes that the boar had to run around, buying him just enough time to climb desperately the cargo net that Jim had tied to a tree earlier that day for boot camp. The boar screeched in protest, its quarry too high to gorge. Jeremy sighed with relief, but felt far from safe. Already, all the muscles that were engaged in clinging him to the net in his core, arms, and legs were weakening.

"Ulrich, are you sure the Tower's here?" Yumi grunted, her fans held tightly before herself, blocking the volley of lasers the Krab was shooting at her. "I can't see anything!"

"It should be literally right in front of you," Ulrich replied, sounding frustrated more with himself than with his friends. Aelita hid behind Yumi's body, scouring the sector for any hint of an activated Tower. From the corner of her eye, something red drew her attention. Her heart soared with hope, thinking it was the red glow of her target, only to feel her stomach sink. It was a second Krab.

Aelita dodged free from cover, drawing the second Krab's attention, which was trying to sneak up behind Yumi. It fired at her, and she leapt out of the way clumsily. "Energy Field!" she cried, launching a pink glowing sphere forward.

It nailed the second Krab in the center of its underbelly, directly beneath the Eye, and the force of energy caused it to explode. The concussive halo of the explosion slammed into something invisible, highlighting it in bright red digital light, before the explosion's front passed, and the Tower once more became invisible. "Yumi! I found the Tower! It's invisible, X.A.N.A's pulled this one on us before!" Aelita sprinted to where she'd seen the Tower.

Jade ducked as she slid beneath William's enormous blade. Using her tail to spin quickly on her heel, she launched herself at William's turned back, sinking her claws into his clothes and skin. With a free paw, she clawed viciously at his face, some of it falling away in black smoke as she tore at him. He raised his sword with a cry of pain, trying to hack her off. She kicked off of his body, back flipped in the air, and used the rebound to shoot three ace shots into his torso.

He breathed heavily, his chest heaving. Parts of his face were missing grotesquely where she had ripped him apart, empty air where his right cheek bone should've been. Instead of ruby blood dripping, black smoke wafted away. "You're just as annoying as I remember you were!" he spat.

"Well, this is fun for me," Jade purred, pettily pretending to groom herself. "You can't imagine how long I've wanted to do that for!" With a cry of frustration and rage, he jumped forward, sword point in front, trying to skewering her. Jade flattened herself down with catlike speed and shot one final arrow into his chest.

He fell apart in a cloud of black smog, devirtualizing. Pleased with herself, Jade looked above with content. The second shield was still in place, and the Core was safe.

"Tower, deactivated," Aelita smiled as darkness swallowed her, the data of the Tower returning to the Digital Sea. "Alright, Ulrich, now, this is what you do…" She walked Ulrich through the devirtualization process and returned to Earth, and to be safe, devirtualized Yumi and Jade herself.

"Just got off the phone with Jeremy," Odd said as the girls joined the rest of the gang in the master computer room. "He's alright! Him and Jim were able to hold of the boar until we deactivated the Tower. Jim's foot or ankle or something is kinda' messed up, so Jeremy is taking him to the infirmary."

"Let's meet him there," Ulrich offered. They meet their programmer friend back on campus, the late afternoon sun spilling across Aelita's cheek, warming it. "Jeremy, are you sure you don't wanna' trigger a Return to the Past?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Jim thought that our boar was certainly wild, but 100% normal. No evil computer conspiracies in sight," Jeremy grinned. Yumi smirked, shaking her head. Thinking about it herself, she can hardly believe Lyoko and all their adventures are real. Frankly, she could hardly believe it herself.

Jim came limping out of the infirmary, and the group waved him over. As he struggled closer, Aelita felt as if years had passed since their winded training session that morning, and knocking on Jim's door, hoping he'd agree to train them himself. Yumi asked how Jim's leg was, and the gym teacher smiled proudly. "Nothing but a minor fracture!" he crowed. "I'll just have to stay on these for a while," he added, looking at the crutches beneath his arms.

"Oh, what a shame,"Aelita replied, trying to strain the sarcasm from her words. "One day of boot camp for weeks of recovery!"

"You may not have been up to the commando level, but you showed great spirit, you really did," Jim replied. "As soon as I am back in shape, I'll organize lots of new training sessions, and I hope to see you all there!"

"Oh, no, not me," Odd stammered quickly. "I'm booked till the end of the year, I've got, uh… sleep sessions."

"Honestly, Jim," Yumi continued, "it's too much of a-"

"-horror," Jade grumbled. Realizing she had spoken her thought out loud, she quickly continued, "I meant honor!"

"Really, it's too kind of you to offer to keep helping us," Ulrich choked desperately.

"I'll be there," Jeremy stated loudly and proudly. Everyone but Jim blinked in raw surprise.

"Excellent, Belpois," Jim chimed. "I knew I could count on you! You showed a lot of guts out there today, kid. See you all tomorrow in class!" With that, their instructor turned and hobbled to the teacher's quarters.

Ulrich waited till he was certain Jim was out of earshot. "How much do you hate yourself?" he asked Jeremy sincerely.

"Yeah, I must be dreaming," Aelita agreed, shaking her head in disbelief.

"You could've come up with a better answer than that," Odd snorted.

"For example; no, or never, or nein, or nunca," Jade ticked off on her fingers. As the group joked about perhaps Jeremy's aging demented brain, or perhaps concussive implications from the tussle with the boar, Jeremy took it all with a happy smile, unable to stop think of the praise he, the school's most nonathletic student, had gotten from the gym teacher. _I knew I could count on you! You showed a lot of guts out there today, kid._


End file.
